A few days afterwards the regent entered Antwerp in triumph, accompanied
by a thousand Walloon horse, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, all the
governors and counsellors, a number of municipal officers, and her whole
court. Her first visit was to the cathedral, which still bore
lamentable traces of the violence of the Iconoclasts, and drew from her
many and bitter tears. Immediately afterwards four of the rebels, who
had been overtaken in their flight, were brought in and executed in the
public market-place. All the children who had been baptized after the
Protestant rites were rebaptized by Roman Catholic priests; all the
schools of heretics were closed, and their churches levelled to the
ground. Nearly all the towns in the Netherlands followed the example of
Antwerp and banished the Protestant preachers. By the end of April the
Roman Catholic churches were repaired and embellished more splendidly
than ever, while all the Protestant places of worship were pulled down,
and every vestige of the proscribed belief obliterated in the seventeen
provinces. The populace, whose sympathies are generally with the
successful party, was now as active in accelerating the ruin of the
unfortunate as a short time before it had been furiously zealous in its
cause; in Ghent a large and beautiful church which the Calvinists had
erected was attacked, and in less than an hour had wholly disappeared.
From the beams of the roofless churches gibbets were erected for those
who had profaned the sanctuaries of the Roman Catholics. The places of
execution were filled with corpses, the prisons with condemned victims,
the high roads with fugitives. Innumerable were the victims of this
year of murder; in the smallest towns fifty at least, in several of the
larger as many as three hundred, were put to death, while no account was
kept of the numbers in the open country who fell into the hands of the
provost-marshal and were immediately strung up as miscreants, without
trial and without mercy.

The regent was still in Antwerp when ambassadors presented themselves
from the Electors of Brandenburg, Saxony, Hesse, Wurtemberg, and Baden
to intercede for their fugitive brethren in the faith. The expelled
preachers of the Augsburg Confession had claimed the rights assured to
them by the religious peace of the Germans, in which Brabant, as part of
the empire, participated, and had thrown themselves on the protection of
those princes. The arrival of the foreign ministers alarmed the regent,
and she vainly endeavored to prevent their entrance into Antwerp; under
the guise, however, of showing them marks of honor, she continued to
keep them closely watched lest they should encourage the malcontents in
any attempts against the peace of the town. From the high tone which
they most unreasonably adopted towards the regent it might almost be
inferred that they were little in earnest in their demand. "It was but
reasonable," they said, "that the Confession of Augsburg, as the only
one which met the spirit of the gospel, should be the ruling faith in
the Netherlands; but to persecute it by such cruel edicts as were in
force was positively unnatural and could not be allowed. They therefore
required of the regent, in the name of religion, not to treat the people
entrusted to her rule with such severity." She replied through the Count
of Staremberg, her minister for German affairs, that such an exordium
deserved no answer at all. From the sympathy which the German princes
had shown for the Belgian fugitives it was clear that they gave less
credit to the letters of the king, in explanation of his measures, than
to the reports of a few worthless wretches who, in the desecrated
churches, had left behind them a worthier memorial of their acts and
characters. It would far more become them to leave to the King of Spain
the care of his own subjects, and abandon the attempt to foster a spirit
of rebellion in foreign countries, from which they would reap neither
honor nor profit. The ambassadors left Antwerp in a few days without
having effected anything. The Saxon minister, indeed, in a private
interview with the regent even assured her that his master had most
reluctantly taken this step.

The German ambassadors had not quitted Antwerp when intelligence from
Holland completed the triumph of the regent. From fear of Count Megen
Count Brederode had deserted his town of Viane, and with the aid of the
Protestants inhabitants had succeeded in throwing himself into
Amsterdam, where his arrival caused great alarm to the city magistrate,
who had previously found difficulty in preventing a revolt, while it
revived the courage of the Protestants. Here Brederode's adherents
increased daily, and many noblemen flocked to him from Utrecht,
Friesland, and Groningen, whence the victorious arms of Megen and
Aremberg had driven them. Under various disguises they found means to
steal into the city, where they gathered round Brederode, and served him
as a strong body-guard. The regent, apprehensive of a new outbreak,
sent one of her private secretaries, Jacob de la Torre, to the council
of Amsterdam, and ordered them to get rid of Count Brederode on any
terms and at any risk. Neither the magistrate nor de la Torre himself,
who visited Brederode in person to acquaint him with the will of the
duchess, could prevail upon him to depart. The secretary was even
surprised in his own chamber by a party of Brederode's followers, and
deprived of all his papers, and would, perhaps, have lost his life also
if he had not contrived to make his escape. Brederode remained in
Amsterdam a full month after this occurrence, a powerless idol of the
Protestants, and an oppressive burden to the Roman Catholics; while his
fine army, which he had left in Viane, reinforced by many fugitives from
the southern provinces, gave Count Megen enough to do without attempting
to harass the Protestants in their flight. At last Brederode resolved
to follow the example of Orange, and, yielding to necessity, abandon a
desperate cause. He informed the town council that he was willing to
leave Amsterdam if they would enable him to do so by furnishing him with
the pecuniary means. Glad to get quit of him, they hastened to borrow
the money on the security of the town council. Brederode quitted
Amsterdam the same night, and was conveyed in a gunboat as far as Vlie,
from whence he fortunately escaped to Embden. Fate treated him more
mildly than the majority of those he had implicated in his foolhardy
enterprise; he died the year after, 1568, at one of his castles in
Germany, from the effects of drinking, by which he sought ultimately to
drown his grief and disappointments. His widow, Countess of Moers in
her own right, was remarried to the Prince Palatine, Frederick III. The
Protestant cause lost but little by his demise; the work which he had
commenced, as it had not been kept alive by him, so it did not die with
him.

The little army, which in his disgraceful flight he had deserted, was
bold and valiant, and had a few resolute leaders. It disbanded, indeed,
as soon as he, to whom it looked for pay, had fled; but hunger and
courage kept its parts together some time longer. One body, under
command of Dietrich of Battenburgh, marched to Amsterdam in the hope of
carrying that town; but Count Megen hastened with thirteen companies of
excellent troops to its relief, and compelled the rebels to give up the
attempt. Contenting themselves with plundering the neighboring
cloisters, among which the abbey of Egmont in particular was hardly
dealt with, they turned off towards Waaterland, where they hoped the
numerous swamps would protect them from pursuit. But thither Count
Megen followed them, and compelled them in all haste to seek safety in
the Zuyderzee. The brothers Van Battenburg, and two Friesan nobles,
Beima and Galama, with a hundred and twenty men and the booty they had
taken from the monasteries, embarked near the town of Hoorne, intending
to cross to Friesland, but through the treachery of the steersman, who
ran the vessel on a sand-bank near Harlingen, they fell into the hands
of one of Aremberg's captains, who took them all prisoners. The Count
of Aremberg immediately pronounced sentence upon all the captives of
plebeian rank, but sent his noble prisoners to the regent, who caused
seven of them to be beheaded. Seven others of the most noble, including
the brothers Van Battenburg and some Frieslanders, all in the bloom of
youth, were reserved for the Duke of Alva, to enable him to signalize
the commencement of his administration by a deed which was in every way
worthy of him. The troops in four other vessels which set sail from
Medenhlick, and were pursued by Count Megen in small boats, were more
successful. A contrary wind had forced them out of their course and
driven them ashore on the coast of Gueldres, where they all got safe to
land; crossing the Rhine, near Heusen, they fortunately escaped into
Cleves, where they tore their flags in pieces and dispersed. In North
Holland Count Megen overtook some squadrons who had lingered too long in
plundering the cloisters, and completely overpowered them. He
afterwards formed a junction with Noircarmes and garrisoned Amsterdam.
The Duke Erich of Brunswick also surprised three companies, the last
remains of the army of the Gueux, near Viane, where they were
endeavoring to take a battery, routed them and captured their leader,
Rennesse, who was shortly afterwards beheaded at the castle of
Freudenburg, in Utrecht. Subsequently, when Duke Erich entered Viane,
he found nothing but deserted streets, the inhabitants having left it
with the garrison on the first alarm. He immediately razed the
fortifications, and reduced this arsenal of the Gueux to an open town
without defences. All the originators of the league were now dispersed;
Brederode and Louis of Nassau had fled to Germany, and Counts
Hogstraten, Bergen, and Kuilemberg had followed their example.
Mansfeld had seceded, the brothers Van Battenburg awaited in prison an
ignomonious fate, while Thoulouse alone had found an honorable death on
the field of battle. Those of the confederates who had escaped the
sword of the enemy and the axe of the executioner had saved nothing but
their lives, and thus the title which they had assumed for show became
at last a terrible reality.

Such was the inglorious end of the noble league, which in its beginning
awakened such fair hopes and promised to become a powerful protection
against oppression. Unanimity was its strength, distrust and internal
dissension its ruin. It brought to light and developed many rare and
beautiful virtues, but it wanted the most indispensable of all, prudence
and moderation, without which any undertaking must miscarry, and all the
fruits of the most laborious industry perish. If its objects had been
as pure as it pretended, or even had they remained as pure as they
really were at its first establishment, it might have defied the
unfortunate combination of circumstances which prematurely overwhelmed
it, and even if unsuccessful it would still have deserved an honorable
mention in history. But it is too evident that the confederate nobles,
whether directly or indirectly, took a greater share in the frantic
excesses of the Iconoclasts than comported with the dignity and
blamelessness of their confederation, and many among them openly
exchanged their own good cause for the mad enterprise of these worthless
vagabonds. The restriction of the Inquisition and a mitigation of the
cruel inhumanity of the edicts must be laid to the credit of the league;
but this transient relief was dearly purchased, at the cost of so many
of the best and bravest citizens, who either lost their lives in the
field, or in exile carried their wealth and industry to another quarter
of the world; and of the presence of Alva and the Spanish arms. Many,
too, of its peaceable citizens, who without its dangerous temptations
would never have been seduced from the ranks of peace and order, were
beguiled by the hope of success into the most culpable enterprises, and
by their failure plunged into ruin and misery. But it cannot be denied
that the league atoned in some measure for these wrongs by positive
benefits. It brought together and emboldened many whom a selfish
pusillanimity kept asunder and inactive; it diffused a salutary public
spirit amongst the Belgian people, which the oppression of the
government had almost entirely extinguished, and gave unanimity and a
common voice to the scattered members of the nation, the absence of
which alone makes despots bold. The attempt, indeed, failed, and the
knots, too carelessly tied, were quickly unloosed; but it was through
such failures that the nation was eventually to attain to a firm and
lasting union, which should bid defiance to change.

The total destruction of the Geusen army quickly brought the Dutch towns
also back to their obedience, and in the provinces there remained not a
single place which had not submitted to the regent; but the increasing
emigration, both of the natives and the foreign residents, threatened
the country with depopulation. In Amsterdam the crowd of fugitives was
so great that vessels were wanting to convey them across the North Sea
and the Zuyderzee, and that flourishing emporium beheld with dismay the
approaching downfall of its prosperity. Alarmed at this general flight,
the regent hastened to write letters to all the towns, to encourage the
citizens to remain, and by fair promises to revive a hope of better and
milder measures. In the king's name she promised to all who would
freely swear to obey the state and the church complete indemnity, and by
public proclamation invited the fugitives to trust to the royal clemency
and return to their homes. She engaged also to relieve the nation from
the dreaded presence of a Spanish army, even if it were already on the
frontiers; nay, she went so far as to drop hints that, if necessary,
means might be found to prevent it by force from entering the provinces,
as she was fully determined not to relinquish to another the glory of a
peace which it had cost her so much labor to effect. Few, however,
returned in reliance upon her word, and these few had cause to repent it
in the sequel; many thousands had already quitted the country, and
several thousands more quickly followed them. Germany and England were
filled with Flemish emigrants, who, wherever they settled, retained
their usages and manners, and even their costume, unwilling to come to
the painful conclusion that they should never again see their native
land, and to give up all hopes of return. Few carried with them any
remains of their former affluence; the greater portion had to beg their
way, and bestowed on their adopted country nothing but industrious skill
and honest citizens.

And now the regent hastened to report to the king tidings such as,
during her whole administration, she had never before been able to
gratify him with. She announced to him that she had succeeded in
restoring quiet throughout the provinces, and that she thought herself
strong enough to maintain it. The sects were extirpated, and the Roman
Catholic worship re-established in all its former splendor; the rebels
had either already met with, or were awaiting in prison, the punishment
they deserved; the towns were secured by adequate garrisons. There was
therefore no necessity for sending Spanish troops into the Netherlands,
and nothing to justify their entrance. Their arrival would tend to
destroy the existing repose, which it had cost so much to establish,
would check the much-desired revival of commerce and trade, and, while
it would involve the country in new expenses, would at the same time
deprive them of the only means of supporting them. The mere rumor of
the approach of a Spanish army had stripped the country of many
thousands of its most valuable citizens; its actual appearance would
reduce it to a desert. As there was no longer any enemy to subdue, or
rebellion to suppress, the people would see no motive for the march of
this army but punishment and revenge, and under this supposition its
arrival would neither be welcomed nor honored. No longer excused by
necessity, this violent expedient would assume the odious aspect of
oppression, would exasperate the national mind afresh, drive the
Protestants to desperation, and arm their brethren in other countries in
their defence. The regent, she said, had in the king's name promised
the nation it should be relieved from this foreign army, and to this
stipulation she was principally indebted for the present peace; she
could not therefore guarantee its long continuance if her pledge was not
faithfully fulfilled. The Netherlands would receive him as their
sovereign, the king, with every mark of attachment and veneration, but
he must come as a father to bless, not as a despot to chastise them.
Let him come to enjoy the peace which she had bestowed on the country,
but not to destroy it afresh.




      ALVA'S ARMAMENT AND EXPEDITION TO THE NETHERLANDS.

But it was otherwise determined in the council at Madrid. The minister,
Granvella, who, even while absent himself, ruled the Spanish cabinet by
his adherents; the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor, Spinosa, and the Duke of
Alva, swayed respectively by hatred, a spirit of persecution, or private
interest, had outvoted the milder councils of the Prince Ruy Gomes of
Eboli, the Count of Feria, and the king's confessor, Fresneda. The
insurrection, it was urged by the former, was indeed quelled for the
present, but only because the rebels were awed by the rumor of the
king's armed approach; it was to fear of punishment alone, and not to
sorrow for their crime, that the present calm was to be ascribed, and
it would soon again be broken if that feeling were allowed to subside.
In fact, the offences of the people fairly afforded the king the
opportunity he had so long desired of carrying out his despotic views
with an appearance of justice. The peaceable settlement for which the
regent took credit to herself was very far from according with his
wishes, which sought rather for a legitimate pretext to deprive the
provinces of their privileges, which were so obnoxious to his despotic
temper.

With an impenetrable dissimulation Philip had hitherto fostered the
general delusion that he was about to visit the provinces in person,
while all along nothing could have been more remote from his real
intentions. Travelling at any time ill suited the methodical regularity
of his life, which moved with the precision of clockwork; and his narrow
and sluggish intellect was oppressed by the variety and multitude of
objects with which new scenes crowded it. The difficulties and dangers
which would attend a journey to the Netherlands must, therefore, have
been peculiarly alarming to his natural timidity and love of ease. Why
should he, who, in all that he did, was accustomed to consider himself
alone, and to make men accommodate themselves to his principles, not his
principles to men, undertake so perilous an expedition, when he could
see neither the advantage nor necessity of it. Moreover, as it had ever
been to him an utter impossibility to separate, even for a moment, his
person from his royal dignity, which no prince ever guarded so
tenaciously and pedantically as himself, so the magnificence and
ceremony which in his mind were inseparably connected with such a
journey, and the expenses which, on this account, it would necessarily
occasion, were of themselves sufficient motives to account for his
indisposition to it, without its being at all requisite to call in the
aid of the influence of his favorite, Ruy Gomes, who is said to have
desired to separate his rival, the Duke of Alva, from the king. Little,
however, as be seriously intended this journey, he still deemed it
advisable to keep up the expectation of it, as well with a view of
sustaining the courage of the loyal as of preventing a dangerous
combination of the disaffected, and stopping the further progress
of the rebels.

In order to carry on the deception as long as possible, Philip made
extensive preparations for his departure, and neglected nothing which
could be required for such an event. He ordered ships to be fitted out,
appointed the officers and others to attend him. To allay the suspicion
such warlike preparations might excite in all foreign courts, they were
informed through his ambassadors of his real design. He applied to the
King of France for a passage for himself and attendants through that
kingdom, and consulted the Duke of Savoy as to the preferable route. He
caused a list to be drawn up of all the towns and fortified places that
lay in his march, and directed all the intermediate distances to be
accurately laid down. Orders were issued for taking a map and survey of
the whole extent of country between Savoy and Burgundy, the duke being
requested to furnish the requisite surveyors and scientific officers.
To such lengths was the deception carried that the regent was commanded
to hold eight vessels at least in readiness off Zealand, and to despatch
them to meet the king the instant she heard of his having sailed from
Spain; and these ships she actually got ready, and caused prayers to be
offered up in all the churches for the king's safety during the voyage,
though in secret many persons did not scruple to remark that in his
chamber at Madrid his majesty would not have much cause to dread the
storms at sea. Philip played his part with such masterly skill that the
Belgian ambassadors at Madrid, Lords Bergen and Montigny, who at first
had disbelieved in the sincerity of his pretended journey, began at last
to be alarmed, and infected their friends in Brussels with similar
apprehensions. An attack of tertian ague, which about this time the
king suffered, or perhaps feigned, in Segovia, afforded a plausible
pretence for postponing his journey, while meantime the preparations for
it were carried on with the utmost activity. At last, when the urgent
and repeated solicitations of his sister compelled him to make a
definite explanation of his plans, he gave orders that the Duke of Alva
should set out forthwith with an army, both to clear the way before him
of rebels, and to enhance the splendor of his own royal arrival. He did
not yet venture to throw off the mask and announce the duke as his
substitute. He had but too much reason to fear that the submission
which his Flemish nobles would cheerfully yield to their sovereign would
be refused to one of his servants, whose cruel character was well known,
and who, moreover, was detested as a foreigner and the enemy of their
constitution. And, in fact, the universal belief that the king was soon
to follow, which long survived Alva's entrance into the country,
restrained the outbreak of disturbances which otherwise would assuredly
have been caused by the cruelties which marked the very opening of the
duke's government.

The clergy of Spain, and especially the Inquisition, contributed richly
towards the expenses of this expedition as to a holy war. Throughout
Spain the enlisting was carried on with the utmost zeal. The viceroys
and governors of Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, and Milan received orders to
select the best of their Italian and Spanish troops in the garrisons and
despatch them to the general rendezvous in the Genoese territory, where
the Duke of Alva would exchange them for the Spanish recruits which he
should bring with him. At the same time the regent was commanded to
hold in readiness a few more regiments of German infantry in Luxembourg,
under the command of the Counts Eberstein, Schaumburg, and Lodrona, and
also some squadrons of light cavalry in the Duchy of Burgundy to
reinforce the Spanish general immediately on his entrance into the
provinces. The Count of Barlaimont was commissioned to furnish the
necessary provision for the armament, and a sum of two hundred thousand
gold florins was remitted to the regent to enable her to meet these
expenses and to maintain her own troops.

The French court, however, under pretence of the danger to be
apprehended from the Huguenots, had refused to allow the Spanish army to
pass through France. Philip applied to the Dukes of Savoy and Lorraine,
who were too dependent upon him to refuse his request. The former
merely stipulated that he should be allowed to maintain two thousand
infantry and a squadron of horse at the king's expense in order to
protect his country from the injuries to which it might otherwise be
exposed from the passage of the Spanish army. At the same time he
undertook to provide the necessary supplies for its maintenance during
the transit.

The rumor of this arrangement roused the Huguenots, the Genevese, the
Swiss, and the Grisons. The Prince of Conde and the Admiral Coligny
entreated Charles IX. not to neglect so favorable a moment of inflicting
a deadly blow on the hereditary foe of France. With the aid of the
Swiss, the Genevese, and his own Protestant subjects, it would, they
alleged, be an easy matter to destroy the flower of the Spanish troops
in the narrow passes of the Alpine mountains; and they promised to
support him in this undertaking with an army of fifty thousand
Huguenots. This advice, however, whose dangerous object was not easily
to be mistaken, was plausibly declined by Charles IX., who assured them
that he was both able and anxious to provide for the security of his
kingdom. He hastily despatched troops to cover the French frontiers;
and the republics of Geneva, Bern, Zurich, and the Grisons followed his
example, all ready to offer a determined opposition to the dreaded enemy
of their religion and their liberty.

On the 5th of May, 1567, the Duke of Alva set sail from Carthagena with
thirty galleys, which had been furnished by Andrew Doria and the Duke
Cosmo of Florence, and within eight days landed at Genoa, where the four
regiments were waiting to join him. But a tertian ague, with which he
was seized shortly after his arrival, compelled him to remain for some
days inactive in Lombardy--a delay of which the neighboring powers
availed themselves to prepare for defence. As soon as the duke
recovered he held at Asti, in Montferrat, a review of all his troops,
who were more formidable by their valor than by their numbers, since
cavalry and infantry together did not amount to much above ten thousand
men. In his long and perilous march he did not wish to encumber himself
with useless supernumeraries, which would only impede his progress and
increase the difficulty of supporting his army. These ten thousand
veterans were to form the nucleus of a greater army, which, according as
circumstances and occasion might require, he could easily assemble in
the Netherlands themselves.

This array, however, was as select as it was small. It consisted of the
remains of those victorious legions at whose head Charles V. had made
Europe tremble; sanguinary, indomitable bands, in whose battalions the
firmness of the old Macedonian phalanx lived again; rapid in their
evolutions from long practice, hardy and enduring, proud of their
leader's success, and confident from past victories, formidable by their
licentiousness, but still more so by their discipline; let loose with
all the passions of a warmer climate upon a rich and peaceful country,
and inexorable towards an enemy whom the church had cursed. Their
fanatical and sanguinary spirit, their thirst for glory and innate
courage was aided by a rude sensuality, the instrument by which the
Spanish general firmly and surely ruled his otherwise intractable
troops. With a prudent indulgence he allowed riot and voluptuousness
to reign throughout the camp. Under his tacit connivance Italian
courtezans followed the standards; even in the march across the
Apennines, where the high price of the necessaries of life compelled him
to reduce his force to the smallest possible number, he preferred to
have a few regiments less rather than to leave behind these instruments
of voluptuousness.

   [The bacchanalian procession of this army contrasted strangely
   enough with the gloomy seriousness and pretended sanctity of his
   aim. The number of these women was so great that to restrain the
   disorders and quarrelling among themselves they hit upon the
   expedient of establishing a discipline of their own. They ranged
   themselves under particular flags, marched in ranks and sections,
   and in admirable military order, after each battalion, and classed
   themselves with strict etiquette according to their rank and pay.]

But industriously as Alva strove to relax the morals of his soldiers,
he enforced the more rigidly a strict military discipline, which was
interrupted only by a victory or rendered less severe by a battle.
For all this he had, he said, the authority of the Athenian General
Iphicrates, who awarded the prize of valor to the pleasure-loving and
rapacious soldier. The more irksome the restraint by which the passions
of the soldiers were kept in check, the greater must have been the
vehemence with which they broke forth at the sole outlet which was left
open to them.

The duke divided his infantry, which was about nine thousand strong, and
chiefly Spaniards, into four brigades, and gave the command of them to
four Spanish officers. Alphonso of Ulloa led the Neapolitan brigade of
nine companies, amounting to three thousand two hundred and thirty men;
Sancho of Lodogno commanded the Milan brigade, three thousand two
hundred men in ten companies; the Sicilian brigade, with the same number
of companies, and consisting of sixteen hundred men, was under Julian
Romero, an experienced warrior, who had already fought on Belgian
ground.

   [The same officer who commanded one of the Spanish regiments about
   which so much complaint had formerly been made in the States-
   General.]

Gonsalo of Braccamonte headed that of Sardinia, which was raised by
three companies of recruits to the full complement of the former. To
every company, moreover, were added fifteen Spanish musqueteers. The
horse, in all twelve hundred strong, consisted of three Italian, two
Albanian, and seven Spanish squadrons, light and heavy cavalry, and the
chief command was held by Ferdinand and Frederick of Toledo, the two
sons of Alva. Chiappin Vitelli, Marquis of Cetona, was field-marshal;
a celebrated general whose services had been made over to the King of
Spain by Cosmo of Florence; and Gabriel Serbellon was general of
artillery. The Duke of Savoy lent Alva an experienced engineer, Francis
Pacotto, of Urbino, who was to be employed in the erection of new
fortifications. His standard was likewise followed by a number of
volunteers, and the flower of the Spanish nobility, of whom the greater
part had fought under Charles V. in Germany, Italy, and before Tunis.
Among these were Christopher Mondragone, one of the ten Spanish heroes
who, near Mithlberg, swam across the Elbe with their swords between
their teeth, and, under a shower of bullets from the enemy, brought over
from the opposite shore the boats which the emperor required for the
construction of a bridge. Sancho of Avila, who had been trained to war
under Alva himself, Camillo of Monte, Francis Ferdugo, Karl Davila,
Nicolaus Basta, and Count Martinego, all fired with a noble ardor,
either to commence their military career under so eminent a leader, or
by another glorious campaign under his command to crown the fame they
had already won. After the review the army marched in three divisions
across Mount Cenis, by the very route which sixteen centuries before
Hannibal is said to have taken. The duke himself led the van; Ferdinand
of Toledo, with whom was associated Lodogno as colonel, the centre; and
the Marquis of Cetona the rear. The Commissary General, Francis of
Ibarra, was sent before with General Serbellon to open the road for the
main body, and get ready the supplies at the several quarters for the
night. The places which the van left in the morning were entered in the
evening by the centre, which in its turn made room on the following day
for the rear. Thus the army crossed the Alps of Savoy by regular
stages, and with the fourteenth day completed that dangerous passage.
A French army of observation accompanied it side by side along the
frontiers of Dauphins, and the course of the Rhone, and the allied army
of the Genevese followed it on the right, and was passed by it at a
distance of seven miles. Both these armies of observation carefully
abstained from any act of hostility, and were merely intended to cover
their own frontiers. As the Spanish legions ascended and descended the
steep mountain crags, or while they crossed the rapid Iser, or file by
file wound through the narrow passes of the rocks, a handful of men
would have been sufficient to put an entire stop to their march, and to
drive them back into the mountains, where they would have been
irretrievably lost, since at each place of encampment supplies were
provided for no more than a single day, and for a third part only of the
whole force. But a supernatural awe and dread of the Spanish name
appeared to have blinded the eyes of the enemy so that they did not
perceive their advantage, or at least did not venture to profit by it.
In order to give them as little opportunity as possible of remembering
it, the Spanish general hastened through this dangerous pass.

Convinced, too, that if his troops gave the slightest umbrage he was
lost, the strictest discipline was maintained during the march; not a
single peasant's hut, not a single field was injured; and never,
perhaps, in the memory of man was so numerous an army led so far in such
excellent order.

   [Once only on entering Lorraine three horsemen ventured to drive
   away a few sheep from a flock, of which circumstance the duke was
   no sooner informed than he sent back to the owner what had been
   taken from him and sentenced the offenders to be hung. This
   sentence was, at the intercession of the Lorraine general, who had
   come to the frontiers to pay his respects to the duke, executed on
   only one of the three, upon whom the lot fell at the drum-head.]

Destined as this army was for vengeance and murder, a malignant and
baleful star seemed to conduct it safe through all dangers; and it would
be difficult to decide whether the prudence of its general or the
blindness of its enemies is most to be wondered at.

In Franche Comte, four squadrons of Burgundian cavalry, newly-raised,
joined the main army, which, at Luxembourg, was also reinforced by three
regiments of German infantry under the command of Counts Eberstein,
Schaumburg, and Lodrona. From Thionville, where he halted a few days,
Alva sent his salutations to the regent by Francis of Ibarra, who was,
at the same time, directed to consult her on the quartering of the
troops. On her part, Noircarmes and Barlairnont were despatched to the
Spanish camp to congratulate the duke on his arrival, and to show him
the customary marks of honor. At the same time they were directed to
ask him to produce the powers entrusted to him by the king, of which,
however, he only showed a part. The envoys of the regent were followed
by swarms of the Flemish nobility, who thought they could not hasten
soon enough to conciliate the favor of the new viceroy, or by a timely
submission avert the vengeance which was preparing. Among them was
Count Egmont. As he came forward the duke pointed him out to the
bystanders. "Here comes an arch-heretic," he exclaimed, loud enough to
be heard by Egmont himself, who, surprised at these words, stopped and
changed color. But when the duke, in order to repair his imprudence,
went up to him with a serene countenance, and greeted him with a
friendly embrace, the Fleming was ashamed of his fears, and made light
of this warning, by putting some frivolous interpretation upon it.
Egmont sealed this new friendship with a present of two valuable
chargers, which Alva accepted with a grave condescension.

Upon the assurance of the regent that the provinces were in the
enjoyment of perfect peace, and that no opposition was to be apprehended
from any quarter, the duke discharged some German regiments, which had
hitherto drawn their pay from the Netherlands. Three thousand six
hundred men, under the command of Lodrona, were quartered in Antwerp,
from which town the Walloon garrison, in which full reliance could not
be placed, was withdrawn; garrisons proportionably stronger were thrown
into Ghent and other important places; Alva himself marched with the
Milan brigade towards Brussels, whither he was accompanied by a splendid
cortege of the noblest in the land.

Here, as in all the other towns of the Netherlands, fear and terror had
preceded him, and all who were conscious of any offences, and even those
who were sensible of none, alike awaited his approach with a dread
similar to that with which criminals see the coming of their day of
trial. All who could tear themselves from the ties of family, property,
and country had already fled, or now at last took to flight. The
advance of the Spanish army had already, according to the report of the
regent, diminished the population of the provinces by the loss of one
hundred thousand citizens, and this general flight still continued. But
the arrival of the Spanish general could not be more hateful to the
people of the Netherlands than it was distressing and dispiriting to the
regent. At last, after so many years of anxiety, she had begun to taste
the sweets of repose, and that absolute-authority, which had been the
long-cherished object of eight years of a troubled and difficult
administration. This late fruit of so much anxious industry, of so many
cares and nightly vigils, was now to be wrested from her by a stranger,
who was to be placed at once in possession of all the advantages which
she had been forced to extract from adverse circumstances, by a long
and tedious course of intrigue and patient endurance. Another was
lightly to bear away the prize of promptitude, and to triumph by more
rapid success over her superior but less glittering merits. Since the
departure of the minister, Granvella, she had tasted to the full the
pleasures of independence. The flattering homage of the nobility, which
allowed her more fully to enjoy the shadow of power, the more they
deprived her of its substance, had, by degrees, fostered her vanity to
such an extent, that she at last estranged by her coldness even the most
upright of all her servants, the state counsellor Viglius, who always
addressed her in the language of truth. All at once a censor of her
actions was placed at her side, a partner of her power was associated
with her, if indeed it was not rather a master who was forced upon her,
whose proud, stubborn, and imperious spirit, which no courtesy could
soften, threatened the deadliest wounds to her self-love and vanity. To
prevent his arrival she had, in her representations to the king, vainly
exhausted every political argument. To no purpose had she urged that
the utter ruin of the commerce of the Netherlands would be the
inevitable consequence of; this introduction of the Spanish troops; in
vain had she assured the king that peace was universally restored, and
reminded him of her own services in procuring it, which deserved, she
thought, a better guerdon than to see all the fruits of her labors
snatched from her and given to a foreigner, and more than all, to behold
all the good which she had effected destroyed by a new and different
line of conduct. Even when the duke had already crossed Mount Cenis she
made one more attempt, entreating him at least to diminish his army; but
that also failed, for the duke insisted upon acting up to the powers
entrusted to him. In poignant grief she now awaited his approach, and
with the tears she shed for her country were mingled those of offended
self-love.

On the 22d of August, 1567, the Duke of Alva appeared before the gates
of Brussels. His army immediately took up their quarters in the
suburbs, and he himself made it his first duty to pay his respects to
the sister of his king. She gave him a private audience on the plea of
suffering from sickness. Either the mortification she had undergone had
in reality a serious effect upon her health, or, what is not improbable,
she had recourse to this expedient to pain his haughty spirit, and in
some degree to lessen his triumph. He delivered to her letters from the
king, and laid before her a copy of his own appointment, by which the
supreme command of the whole military force of the Netherlands was
committed to him, and from which, therefore, it would appear, that the
administration of civil affairs remained, as heretofore, in the hands of
the regent. But as soon as he was alone with her he produced a new
commission, which was totally different from the former. According to
this, the power was delegated to him of making war at his discretion,
of erecting fortifications, of appointing and dismissing at pleasure the
governors of provinces, the commandants of towns, and other officers of
the king; of instituting inquiries into the past troubles, of punishing
those who originated them, and of rewarding the loyal. Powers of this
extent, which placed him almost on a level with a sovereign prince, and
far surpassed those of the regent herself, caused her the greatest
consternation, and it was with difficulty that she could conceal her
emotion. She asked the duke whether he had not even a third commission,
or some special orders in reserve which went still further, and were
drawn up still more precisely, to which he replied distinctly enough in
the affirmative, but at the same time gave her to understand that this
commission might be too full to suit the present occasion, and would be
better brought into play hereafter with due regard to time and
circumstances. A few days after his arrival he caused a copy of the
first instructions to be laid before the several councils and the
states, and had them printed to insure their rapid circulation. As the
regent resided in the palace, he took up his quarters temporarily in
Kuilemberg house, the same in which the association of the Gueux had
received its name, and before which, through a wonderful vicissitude,
Spanish tyranny now planted its flag.

A dead silence reigned in Brussels, broken only at times by the unwonted
clang of arms. The duke had entered the town but a few hours when his
attendants, like bloodhounds that have been slipped, dispersed
themselves in all directions. Everywhere foreign faces were to be seen;
the streets were empty, all the houses carefully closed, all amusements
suspended, all public places deserted. The whole metropolis resembled a
place visited by the plague. Acquaintances hurried on without stopping
for their usual greeting; all hastened on the moment a Spaniard showed
himself in the streets. Every sound startled them, as if it were the
knock of the officials of justice at their doors; the nobility, in
trembling anxiety, kept to their houses; they shunned appearing in
public lest their presence should remind the new viceroy of some past
offence. The two nations now seemed to have exchanged characters. The
Spaniard had become the talkative man and the Brabanter taciturn;
distrust and fear had scared away the spirit of cheerfulness and mirth;
a constrained gravity fettered even the play of the features. Every
moment the impending blow was looked for with dread.

This general straining of expectation warned the duke to hasten the
accomplishment of his plans before they should be anticipated by the
timely flight of his victims. His first object was to secure the
suspected nobles, in order, at once and forever, to deprive the faction
of its leaders, and the nation, whose freedom was to be crushed, of all
its supporters. By a pretended affability he had succeeded in lulling
their first alarm, and in restoring Count Egmont in particular to his
former perfect confidence, for which purpose he artfully employed his
sons, Ferdinand and Frederick of Toledo, whose companionableness and
youth assimilated more easily with the Flemish character. By this
skilful advice he succeeded also in enticing Count Horn to Brussels,
who had hitherto thought it advisable to watch the first measures of the
duke from a distance, but now suffered himself to be seduced by the good
fortune of his friend. Some of the nobility, and Count Egmont at the
head of them, even resumed their former gay style of living. But they
themselves did not do so with their whole hearts, and they had not many
imitators. Kuilemberg house was incessantly besieged by a numerous
crowd, who thronged around the person of the new viceroy, and exhibited
an affected gayety on their countenances, while their hearts were wrung
with distress and fear. Egmont in particular assumed the appearance of
a light heart, entertaining the duke's sons, and being feted by them in
return. Meanwhile, the duke was fearful lest so fair an opportunity for
the accomplishment of his plans might not last long, and lest some act
of imprudence might destroy the feeling of security which had tempted
both his victims voluntarily to put themselves into his power; he only
waited for a third; Hogstraten also was to be taken in the same net.
Under a plausible pretext of business he therefore summoned him to the
metropolis. At the same time that he purposed to secure the three
counts in Brussels, Colonel Lodrona was to arrest the burgomaster,
Strahlen, in Antwerp, an intimate friend of the Prince of Orange, and
suspected of having favored the Calvinists; another officer was to seize
the private secretary of Count Egmont, whose name was John Cassembrot
von Beckerzeel, as also some secretaries of Count Horn, and was to
possess themselves of their papers.

When the day arrived which had been fixed upon for the execution of this
plan, the duke summoned all the counsellors and knights before him to
confer with them upon matters of state. On this occasion the Duke of
Arschot, the Counts Mansfeld, Barlaimont, and Aremberg attended on the
part of the Netherlands, and on the part of the Spaniards besides the
duke's sons, Vitelli, Serbellon, and Ibarra. The young Count Mansfeld,
who likewise appeared at the meeting, received a sign from his father to
withdraw with all speed, and by a hasty flight avoid the fate which was
impending over him as a former member of the Geusen league. The duke
purposely prolonged the consultation to give time before he acted for
the arrival of the couriers from Antwerp, who were to bring him the
tidings of the arrest of the other parties. To avoid exciting any
suspicion, the engineer, Pacotto, was required to attend the meeting to
lay before it the plans for some fortifications. At last intelligence
was brought him that Lodrona had successfully executed his commission.
Upon this the duke dexterously broke off the debate and dismissed the
council. And now, as Count Egmont was about to repair to the apartment
of Don Ferdinand, to finish a game that he had commenced with him, the
captain of the duke's body guard, Sancho D'Avila, stopped him, and
demanded his sword in the king's name. At the same time he was
surrounded by a number of Spanish soldiers, who, as had been
preconcerted, suddenly advanced from their concealment. So unexpected
a blow deprived Egmont for some moments of all powers of utterance and
recollection; after a while, however, he collected himself, and taking
his sword from his side with dignified composure, said, as he delivered
it into the hands of the Spaniard, "This sword has before this on more
than one occasion successfully defended the king's cause." Another
Spanish officer arrested Count Horn as he was returning to his house
without the least suspicion of danger. Horn's first inquiry was after
Egmont. On being told that the same fate had just happened to his
friend he surrendered himself without resistance. "I have suffered
myself to be guided by him," he exclaimed, "it is fair that I should
share his destiny." The two counts were placed in confinement in
separate apartments. While this was going on in the interior of
Kuilemberg house the whole garrison were drawn out under arms in front
of it. No one knew what had taken place inside, a mysterious terror
diffused itself throughout Brussels until rumor spread the news of this
fatal event. Each felt as if he himself were the sufferer; with many
indignation at Egmont's blind infatuation preponderated over sympathy
for his fate; all rejoiced that Orange had escaped. The first question
of the Cardinal Granvella, too, when these tidings reached him in Rome,
is said to have been, whether they had taken the Silent One also. On
being answered in the negative he shook his head "then as they have let
him escape they have got nothing." Fate ordained better for the Count
of Hogstraten. Compelled by ill-health to travel slowly, he was met by
the report of this event while he was yet on his way. He hastily turned
back, and fortunately escaped destruction. Immediately after Egmont's
seizure a writing was extorted from him, addressed to the commandant of
the citadel of Ghent, ordering that officer to deliver the fortress to
the Spanish Colonel Alphonso d'Ulloa. Upon this the two counts were
then (after they had been for some weeks confined in Brussels) conveyed
under a guard of three thousand Spaniards to Ghent, where they remained
imprisoned till late in the following year. In the meantime all their
papers had been seized. Many of the first nobility who, by the
pretended kindness of the Duke of Alva, had allowed themselves to be
cajoled into remaining experienced the same fate. Capital punishment
was also, without further delay, inflicted on all who before the duke's
arrival had been taken with arms in their hands. Upon the news of
Egmont's arrest a second body of about twenty thousand inhabitants took
up the wanderer's staff, besides the one hundred thousand who, prudently
declining to await the arrival of the Spanish general, had already
placed themselves in safety.

   [A great part of these fugitives helped to strengthen the army of
   the Huguenots, who had taken occasion, from the passage of the
   Spanish army through Lorraine, to assemble their forces, and now
   pressed Charles IX. hard. On these grounds the French court
   thought it had a right to demand aid from the regent of the
   Netherlands. It asserted that the Huguenots had looked upon the
   march of the Spanish army as the result of a preconcerted plan
   which had been formed against them by the two courts at Bayonne and
   that this had roused them from their slumber. That consequently it
   behooved the Spanish court to assist in extricating the French king
   from difficulties into which the latter had been brought simply by
   the march of the Spanish troops. Alva actually sent the Count of
   Aremberg with a considerable force to join the army of the Queen
   Mother in France, and even offered to command these subsidiaries in
   person, which, however, was declined. Strada, 206. Thuan, 541.]

After so noble a life had been assailed no one counted himself safe any
longer; but many found cause to repent that they had so long deferred
this salutary step; for every day flight was rendered more difficult,
for the duke ordered all the ports to be closed, and punished the
attempt at emigration with death. The beggars were now esteemed
fortunate, who had abandoned country and property in order to preserve
at least their liberty and their lives.




   ALVA'S FIRST MEASURES, AND DEPARTURE OF THE DUCHESS OF PARMA.

Alva's first step, after securing the most suspected of the nobles, was
to restore the Inquisition to its former authority, to put the decrees
of Trent again in force, abolish the "moderation," and promulgate anew
the edicts against heretics in all their original severity. The court
of Inquisition in Spain had pronounced the whole nation of the
Netherlands guilty of treason in the highest degree, Catholics and
heterodox, loyalists and rebels, without distinction; the latter as
having offended by overt acts, the former as having incurred equal guilt
by their supineness. From this sweeping condemnation a very few were
excepted, whose names, however, were purposely reserved, while the
general sentence was publicly confirmed by the king. Philip declared
himself absolved from all his promises, and released from all
engagements which the regent in his name had entered into with the
people of the Netherlands, and all the justice which they had in future
to expect from him must depend on his own good-will and pleasure. All
who had aided in the expulsion of the minister, Granvella, who had taken
part in the petition of the confederate nobles, or had but even spoken
in favor of it; all who had presented a petition against the decrees of
Trent, against the edicts relating to religion, or against the
installation of the bishops; all who had permitted the public
preachings, or had only feebly resisted them; all who had worn the
insignia of the Gueux, had sung Geusen songs, or who in any way
whatsoever had manifested their joy at the establishment of the league;
all who had sheltered or concealed the reforming preachers, attended
Calvinistic funerals, or had even merely known of their secret meetings,
and not given information of them; all who had appealed to the national
privileges; all, in fine, who had expressed an opinion that they ought
to obey God rather than man; all these indiscriminately were declared
liable to the penalties which the law imposed upon any violation of the
royal prerogative, and upon high treason; and these penalties were,
according to the instruction which Alva had received, to be executed on
the guilty persons without forbearance or favor; without regard to rank,
sex, or age, as an example to posterity, and for a terror to all future
times. According to this declaration there was no longer an innocent
person to be found in the whole Netherlands, and the new viceroy had it
in his power to make a fearful choice of victims. Property and life
were alike at his command, and whoever should have the good fortune to
preserve one or both must receive them as the gift of his generosity and
humanity. By this stroke of policy, as refined as it was detestable,
the nation was disarmed, and unanimity rendered impossible. As it
absolutely depended on the duke's arbitrary will upon whom the sentence
should be carried in force which had been passed without exception upon
all, each individual kept himself quiet, in order to escape, if
possible, the notice of the viceroy, and to avoid drawing the fatal
choice upon himself. Every one, on the other hand, in whose favor he
was pleased to make an exception stood in a degree indebted to him, and
was personally under an obligation which must be measured by the value
he set upon his life and property. As, however, this penalty could only
be executed on the smaller portion of the nation, the duke naturally
secured the greater by the strongest ties of fear and gratitude, and for
one whom he sought out as a victim he gained ten others whom he passed
over. As long as he continued true to this policy he remained in quiet
possession of his rule, even amid the streams of blood which he caused
to flow, and did not forfeit this advantage till the want of money
compelled him to impose a burden upon the nation which oppressed all
indiscriminately.

In order to be equal to this bloody occupation, the details of which
were fast accumulating, and to be certain of not losing a single victim
through the want of instruments; and, on the other hand, to render his
proceedings independent of the states, with whose privileges they were
so much at variance, and who, indeed, were far too humane for him, he
instituted an extraordinary court of justice. This court consisted of
twelve criminal judges, who, according to their instructions, to the
very letter of which they must adhere, were to try and pronounce
sentence upon those implicated in the past disturbances. The mere
institution of such a board was a violation of the liberties of the
country, which expressly stipulated that no citizen should be tried out
of his own province; but the duke filled up the measure of his injustice
when, contrary to the most sacred privileges of the nation, he proceeded
to give seats and votes in that court to Spaniards, the open and avowed
enemies of Belgian liberty. He himself was the president of this court,
and after him a certain licentiate, Vargas, a Spaniard by birth, of
whose iniquitous character the historians of both parties are unanimous;
cast out like a plague-spot from his own country, where he had violated
one of his wards, he was a shameless, hardened villain, in whose mind
avarice, lust, and the thirst for blood struggled for ascendancy. The
principal members were Count Aremberg, Philip of Noircarmes, and Charles
of Barlaimont, who, however, never sat in it; Hadrian Nicolai,
chancellor of Gueldres; Jacob Mertens and Peter Asset, presidents of
Artois and Flanders; Jacob Hesselts and John de la Porte, counsellors of
Ghent; Louis del Roi, doctor of theology, and by birth a Spaniard; John
du Bois, king's advocate; and De la'Torre, secretary of the court. In
compliance with the representations of Viglius the privy council was
spared any part in this tribunal; nor was any one introduced into it
from the great council at Malines. The votes of the members were only
recommendatory, not conclusive, the final sentence being reserved by the
duke to himself. No particular time was fixed for the sitting of the
court; the members, however, assembled at noon, as often as the duke
thought good. But after the expiration of the third month Alva began to
be less frequent in his attendance, and at last resigned his place
entirely to his favorite, Vargas, who filled it with such odious fitness
that in a short time all the members, with the exception merely of the
Spanish doctor, Del Rio, and the secretary, De la Torre, weary of the
atrocities of which they were compelled to be both eyewitnesses and
accomplices, remained away from the assembly.

   [The sentences passed upon the most eminent persons (for example,
   the sentence of death passed upon Strahlen, the burgomaster of
   Antwerp), were signed only by Vargas, Del Rio, and De la Torre.]

It is revolting to the feelings to think how the lives of the noblest
and best were thus placed at the mercy of Spanish vagabonds, and how
even the sanctuaries of the nation, its deeds and charters, were
unscrupulously ransacked, the seals broken, and the most secret
contracts between the sovereign and the state profaned and exposed.

   [For an example of the unfeeling levity with which the most
   important matters, even decisions in cases of life and death, were
   treated in this sanguinary council, it may serve to relate what is
   told of the Counsellor Hesselts. He was generally asleep during
   the meeting, and when his turn came to vote on a sentence of death
   he used to cry out, still half asleep: "Ad patibulum! Ad
   patibulum!" so glibly did his tongue utter this word. It is
   further to be remarked of this Hesselts, that his wife, a daughter
   of the President Viglius, had expressly stipulated in the marriage-
   contract that he should resign the dismal office of attorney for
   the king, which made him detested by the whole nation. Vigl. ad
   Hopp. lxvii., L.]

From the council of twelve (which, from the object of its institution,
was called the council for disturbances, but on account of its
proceedings is more generally known under the appellation of the council
of blood, a name which the nation in their exasperation bestowed upon
it), no appeal was allowed. Its proceedings could not be revised. Its
verdicts were irrevocable and independent of all other authority. No
other tribunal in the country could take cognizance of cases which
related to the late insurrection, so that in all the other courts
justice was nearly at a standstill. The great council at Malines was
as good as abolished; the authority of the council of state entirely
ceased, insomuch that its sittings were discontinued. On some rare
occasions the duke conferred with a few members of the late assembly,
but even when this did occur the conference was held in his cabinet, and
was no more than a private consultation, without any of the proper forms
being observed. No privilege, no charter of immunity, however carefully
protected, had any weight with the council for disturbances.

   [Vargas, in a few words of barbarous Latin, demolished at once the
   boasted liberties of the Netherlands. "Non curamus vestros
   privilegios," he replied to one who wished to plead the immunities
   of the University of Louvain.]

It compelled all deeds and contracts to be laid before it, and often
forced upon them the most strained interpetations and alterations. If
the duke caused a sentence to be drawn out which there was reason to
fear might be opposed by the states of Brabant, it was legalized without
the Brabant seal. The most sacred rights of individuals were assailed,
and a tyranny without example forced its arbitrary will even into the
circle of domestic life. As the Protestants and rebels had hitherto
contrived to strengthen their party so much by marriages with the first
families in the country, the duke issued an edict forbidding all
Netherlanders, whatever might be their rank or office, under pain of
death and confiscation of property, to conclude a marriage without
previously obtaining his permission.

All whom the council for disturbances thought proper to summon before it
were compelled to appear, clergy as well as laity; the most venerable
heads of the senate, as well as the reprobate rabble of the Iconoclasts.
Whoever did not present himself, as indeed scarcely anybody did, was
declared an outlaw, and his property was confiscated; but those who were
rash or foolish enough to appear, or who were so unfortunate as to be
seized, were lost without redemption. Twenty, forty, often fifty were
summoned at the same time and from the same town, and the richest were
always the first on whom the thunderbolt descended. The meaner
citizens, who possessed nothing that could render their country and
their homes dear to them, were taken unawares and arrested without any
previous citation. Many eminent merchants, who had at their disposal
fortunes of from sixty thousand to one hundred thousand florins, were
seen with their hands tied behind their backs, dragged like common
vagabonds at the horse's tail to execution, and in Valenciennes
fifty-five persons were decapitated at one time. All the prisons--and the
duke immediately on commencing his administration had built a great
number of them--were crammed full with the accused; hanging, beheading,
quartering, burning were the prevailing and ordinary occupations of the
day; the punishment of the galleys and banishment were more rarely heard
of, for there was scarcely any offence which was reckoned too trival to
be punished with death. Immense sums were thus brought into the treasury,
which, however, served rather to stimulate the new viceroy's and his
colleagues' thirst for gold than to quench it. It seemed to be his insane
purpose to make beggars of the whole people, and to throw all their
riches into the hands of the king and his servants. The yearly income
derived from these confiscations was computed to equal the revenues of
the first kingdoms of Europe; it is said to have been estimated, in a
report furnished to the king, at the incredible amount of twenty million
of dollars. But these proceedings were the more inhuman, as they often
bore hardest precisely upon the very persons who were the most peaceful
subjects, and most orthodox Roman Catholics, whom they could not want to
injure. Whenever an estate was confiscated all the creditors who had
claims upon it were defrauded. The hospitals, too, and public
institutions, which such properties had contributed to support, were now
ruined, and the poor, who had formerly drawn a pittance from this source,
were compelled to see their only spring of comfort dried up. Whoever
ventured to urge their well-grounded claims on the forfeited property
before the council of twelve (for no other tribunal dared to interfere
with these inquiries), consumed their substance in tedious and expensive
proceedings, and were reduced to beggary before they saw the end of them.
The histories of civilized states furnish but one instance of a similar
perversion of justice, of such violation of the rights of property, and
of such waste of human life; but Cinna, Sylla, and Marius entered
vanquished Rome as incensed victors, and practised without disguise what
the viceroy of the Netherlands performed under the venerable veil of the
laws.

Up to the end of the year 1567 the king's arrival had been confidently
expected, and the well-disposed of the people had placed all their last
hopes on this event. The vessels, which Philip had caused to be
equipped expressly for the purpose of meeting him, still lay in the
harbor of Flushing, ready to sail at the first signal; and the town of
Brussels had consented to receive a Spanish garrison, simply because the
king, it was pretended, was to reside within its walls. But this hope
gradually vanished, as he put off the journey from one season to the
next, and the new viceroy very soon began to exhibit powers which
announced him less as a precursor of royalty than as an absolute
minister, whose presence made that of the monarch entirely superfluous.
To compete the distress of the provinces their last good angel was now
to leave them in the person of the regent. From the moment when the
production of the duke's extensive powers left no doubt remaining as to
the practical termination of her own rule, Margaret had formed the
resolution of relinquishing the name also of regent. To see a successor
in the actual possession of a dignity which a nine years' enjoyment had
made indispensable to her; to see the authority, the glory, the
splendor, the adoration, and all the marks of respect, which are the
usual concomitants of supreme power, pass over to another; and to feel
that she had lost that which she could never forget she had once held,
was more than a woman's mind could endure; moreover, the Duke of Alva
was of all men the least calculated to make her feel her privation the
less painful by a forbearing use of his newly-acquired dignity. The
tranquillity of the country, too, which was put in jeopardy by this
divided rule, seemed to impose upon the duchess the necessity of
abdicating. Many governors of provinces refused, without an express
order from the court, to receive commands from the duke and to recognize
him as co-regent.

The rapid change of their point of attraction could not be met by the
courtiers so composedly and imperturbably but that the duchess observed
the alteration, and bitterly felt it. Even the few who, like State
Counsellor Viglius, still firmly adhered to her, did so less from
attachment to her person than from vexation at being displaced by
novices and foreigners, and from being too proud to serve a fresh
apprenticeship under a new viceroy. But far the greater number, with
all their endeavors to keep an exact mean, could not help making a
difference between the homage they paid to the rising sun and that which
they bestowed on the setting luminary. The royal palace in Brussels
became more and more deserted, while the throng at Kuilemberg house
daily increased. But what wounded the sensitiveness of the duchess most
acutely was the arrest of Horn and Egmont, which was planned and
executed by the duke without her knowledge or consent, just as if there
had been no such person as herself in existence. Alva did, indeed,
after the act was done, endeavor to appease her by declaring that the
design had been purposely kept secret from her in order to spare her
name from being mixed up in so odious a transaction; but no such
considerations of delicacy could close the wound which had been
inflicted on her pride. In order at once to escape all risk of similar
insults, of which the present was probably only a forerunner, she
despatched her private secretary, Macchiavell, to the court of her
brother, there to solicit earnestly for permission to resign the
regency. The request was granted without difficulty by the king, who
accompanied his consent with every mark of his highest esteem. He would
put aside (so the king expressed himself) his own advantage and that of
the provinces in order to oblige his sister. He sent a present of
thirty thousand dollars, and allotted to her a yearly pension of twenty
thousand.

   [Which, however, does not appear to have been very punctually paid,
   if a pamphlet maybe trusted which was printed during her lifetime.
   (It bears the title: Discours sur la Blessure de Monseigneur Prince
   d'Orange, 1582, without notice of the place where it was printed,
   and is to be found in the Elector's library at Dresden.) She
   languished, it is there stated, at Namur in poverty, and so ill-
   supported by her son (the then governor of the Netherlands), that
   her own secretary, Aldrobandin, called her sojourn there an exile.
   But the writer goes on to ask what better treatment could she
   expect from a son who, when still very young, being on a visit to
   her at Brussels, snapped his fingers at her behind her back.]

At the same time a diploma was forwarded to the Duke of Alva,
constituting him, in her stead, viceroy of all the Netherlands, with
unlimited powers.

Gladly would Margaret have learned that she was permitted to resign the
regency before a solemn assembly of the states, a wish which she had not
very obscurely hinted to the king. But she was not gratified. She was
particularly fond of solemnity, and the example of the Emperor, her
father, who had exhibited the extraordinary spectacle of his abdication
of the crown in this very city, seemed to have great attractions for
her. As she was compelled to part with supreme power, she could
scarcely be blamed for wishing to do so with as much splendor as
possible. Moreover, she had not failed to observe how much the general
hatred of the duke had effected in her own favor, and she looked,
therefore, the more wistfully forward to a scene, which promised to be
at once so flattering to her and so affecting. She would have been glad
to mingle her own tears with those which she hoped to see shed by the
Netherlanders for their good regent. Thus the bitterness of her descent
from the throne would have been alleviated by the expression of general
sympathy. Little as she had done to merit the general esteem during the
nine years of her administration, while fortune smiled upon her, and the
approbation of her sovereign was the limit to all her wishes, yet now
the sympathy of the nation had acquired a value in her eyes as the only
thing which could in some degree compensate to her for the
disappointment of all her other hopes. Fain would she have persuaded
herself that she had become a voluntary sacrifice to her goodness of
heart and her too humane feelings towards the Netherlanders. As,
however, the king was very far from being disposed to incur any danger
by calling a general assembly of the states, in order to gratify a mere
caprice of his sister, she was obliged to content herself with a
farewell letter to them. In this document she went over her whole
administration, recounted, not without ostentation, the difficulties
with which she had had to struggle, the evils which, by her dexterity,
she had prevented, and wound up at last by saying that she left a
finished work, and had to transfer to her successor nothing but the
punishment of offenders. The king, too, was repeatedly compelled to hear
the same statement, and she left nothing undone to arrogate to herself
the glory of any future advantages which it might be the good fortune of
the duke to realize. Her own merits, as something which did not admit
of a doubt, but was at the same time a burden oppressive to her modesty,
she laid at the feet of the king.

Dispassionate posterity may, nevertheless; hesitate to subscribe
unreservedly to this favorable opinion. Even though the united voice of
her contemporaries, and the testimony of the Netherlands themselves
vouch for it, a third party will not be denied the right to examine her
claims with stricter scrutiny. The popular mind, easily affected, is
but too ready to count the absence of a vice as an additional virtue,
and, under the pressure of existing evil, to give excess of praise for
past benefits.

The Netherlander seems to have concentrated all his hatred upon the
Spanish name. To lay the blame of the national evils on the regent
would tend to remove from the king and his minister the curses which he
would rather shower upon them alone and undividedly; and the Duke of
Alva's government of the Netherlands was, perhaps, not the proper point
of view from which to test the merits of his predecessor. It was
undoubtedly no light task to meet the king's expectations without
infringing the rights of the people and the duties of humanity; but
in struggling to effect these two contradictory objects Margaret had
accomplished neither. She had deeply injured the nation, while
comparatively she had done little service to the king. It is true that
she at last crushed the Protestant faction, but the accidental outbreak
of the Iconoclasts assisted her in this more than all her dexterity.
She certainly succeeded by her intrigues in dissolving the league of the
nobles, but not until the first blow had been struck at its roots by
internal dissensions. The object, to secure which she had for many
years vainly exhausted her whole policy, was effected at last by a single
enlistment of troops, for which, however, the orders were issued from
Madrid. She delivered to the duke, no doubt, a tranquillized country;
but it cannot be denied that the dread of his approach had the chief
share in tranquillizing it. By her reports she led the council in Spain
astray; because she never informed it of the disease, but only of the
occasional symptoms; never of the universal feeling and voice of the
nation, but only of the misconduct of factions. Her faulty
administration, moreover, drew the people into the crime, because
she exasperated without sufficiently awing them. She it was that
brought the murderous Alva into the country by leading the king to
believe that the disturbances in the provinces were to be ascribed, not
so much to the severity of the royal ordinances, as to the unworthiness
of those who were charged with their execution. Margaret possessed
natural capacity and intellect; and an acquired political tact enabled
her to meet any ordinary case; but she wanted that creative genius
which, for new and extraordinary emergencies, invents new maxims, or
wisely oversteps old ones. In a country where honesty was the best
policy, she adopted the unfortunate plan of practising her insidious
Italian policy, and thereby sowed the seeds of a fatal distrust in the
minds of the people. The indulgence which has been so liberally imputed
to her as a merit was, in truth, extorted from her weakness and timidity
by the courageous opposition of the nation; she had never departed from
the strict letter of the royal commands by her own spontaneous
resolution; never did the gentle feelings of innate humanity lead her
to misinterpret the cruel purport of her instructions. Even the few
concessions to which necessity compelled her were granted with an
uncertain and shrinking hand, as if fearing to give too much; and she
lost the fruit of her benefactions because she mutilated them by a
sordid closeness. What in all the other relations of her life she was
too little, she was on the throne too much--a woman! She had it in her
power, after Granvella's expulsion, to become the benefactress of the
Belgian nation, but she did not. Her supreme good was the approbation
of her king, her greatest misfortune his displeasure; with all the
eminent qualities of her mind she remained an ordinary character because
her heart was destitute of native nobility. She used a melancholy power
with much moderation, and stained her government with no deed of
arbitrary cruelty; nay, if it had depended on her, she would have always
acted humanely. Years afterwards, when her idol, Philip II., had long
forgotten her, the Netherlanders still honored her memory; but she was
far from deserving the glory which her successor's inhumanity reflected
upon her.

She left Brussels about the end of December, 1567. The duke escorted
her as far as the frontiers of Brabant, and there left her under the
protection of Count Mansfeld in order to hasten back to the metropolis
and show himself to the Netherlanders as sole regent.




       TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF COUNTS EGMONT AND HORN.

The two counts were a few weeks after their arrest conveyed to Ghent
under an escort of three thousand Spaniards, where they were confined in
the citadel for more than eight months. Their trial commenced in due
form before the council of twelve, and the solicitor-general, John Du
Bois, conducted the proceedings. The indictment against Egmont
consisted of ninety counts, and that against Horn of sixty. It would
occupy too much space to introduce them here. Every action, however
innocent, every omission of duty, was interpreted on the principle which
had been laid down in the opening of the indictment, "that the two
counts, in conjunction with the Prince of Orange, had planned the
overthrow of the royal authority in the Netherlands, and the usurpation
of the government of the country;" the expulsion of Granvella; the
embassy of Egmont to Madrid; the confederacy of the Gueux; the
concessions which they made to the Protestants in the provinces under
their government--all were made to have a connection with, and reference
to, this deliberate design. Thus importance was attached to the most
insignificant occurrences, and one action made to darken and discolor
another. By taking care to treat each of the charges as in itself a
treasonable offence it was the more easy to justify a sentence of high
treason by the whole.

The accusations were sent to each of the prisoners, who were required to
reply to them within five days. After doing so they were allowed to
employ solicitors and advocates, who were permitted free access to them;
but as they were accused of treason their friends were prohibited from
visiting them. Count Egmont employed for his solicitor Von Landas, and
made choice of a few eminent advocates from Brussels.

The first step was to demur against the tribunal which was to try them,
since by the privilege of their order they, as Knights of the Golden
Fleece, were amenable only to the king himself, the grand master. But
this demurrer was overruled, and they were required to produce their
witnesses, in default of which they were to be proceeded against _in
contumaciam._ Egmont had satisfactorily answered to eighty-two counts,
while Count Horn had refuted the charges against him, article by
article. The accusation and the defence are still extant; on that
defence every impartial tribunal would have acquitted them both. The
Procurator Fiscal pressed for the production of their evidence, and the
Duke of Alva issued his repeated commands to use despatch. They
delayed, however, from week to week, while they renewed their protests
against the illegality of the court. At last the duke assigned them
nine days to produce their proofs; on the lapse of that period they were
to be declared guilty, and as having forfeited all right of defence.

During the progress of the trial the relations and friends of the two
counts were not idle. Egmont's wife, by birth a duchess of Bavaria,
addressed petitions to the princes of the German empire, to the Emperor,
and to the King of Spain. The Countess Horn, mother of the imprisoned
count, who was connected by the ties of friendship or of blood with the
principal royal families of Germany, did the same. All alike protested
loudly against this illegal proceeding, and appealed to the liberty of
the German empire, on which Horn, as a count of the empire, had special
claims; the liberty of the Netherlands and the privileges of the Order
of the Golden Fleece were likewise insisted upon. The Countess Egmont
succeeded in obtaining the intercession of almost every German court in
behalf of her husband. The King of Spain and his viceroy were besieged
by applications in behalf of the accused, which were referred from one
to the other, and made light of by both. Countess Horn collected
certificates from all the Knights of the Golden Fleece in Spain,
Germany, and Italy to prove the privileges of the order. Alva rejected
them with a declaration that they had no force in such a case as the
present. "The crimes of which the counts are accused relate to the
affairs of the Belgian provinces, and he, the duke, was appointed by the
king sole judge of all matters connected with those countries."

Four months had been allowed to the solicitor-general to draw up the
indictment, and five were granted to the two counts to prepare for their
defence. But instead of losing their time and trouble in adducing their
evidence, which, perhaps, would have profited then but little, they
preferred wasting it in protests against the judges, which availed them
still less. By the former course they would probably have delayed the
final sentence, and in the time thus gained the powerful intercession of
their friends might perhaps have not been ineffectual. By obstinately
persisting in denying the competency of the tribunal which was to try
them, they furnished the duke with an excuse for cutting short the
proceedings. After the last assigned period had expired, on the 1st of
June, 1658, the council of twelve declared them guilty, and on the 4th
of that month sentence of death was pronounced against them.

The execution of twenty-five noble Netherlanders, who were beheaded in
three successive days in the marketplace at Brussels, was the terrible
prelude to the fate of the two counts. John Casembrot von Beckerzeel,
secretary to Count Egmont, was one of the unfortunates, who was thus
rewarded for his fidelity to his master, which he steadfastly maintained
even upon the rack, and for his zeal in the service of the king, which
he had manifested against the Iconoclasts. The others had either been
taken prisoners, with arms in their hands, in the insurrection of the
"Gueux," or apprehended and condemned as traitors on account of having
taken a part in the petition of the nobles.

The duke had reason to hasten the execution of the sentence. Count
Louis of Nassau had given battle to the Count of Aremberg, near the
monastery of Heiligerlee, in Groningen, and had the good fortune to
defeat him. Immediately after his victory he had advanced against
Groningen, and laid siege to it. The success of his arms had raised the
courage of his faction; and the Prince of Orange, his brother, was close
at hand with an army to support him. These circumstances made the
duke's presence necessary in those distant provinces; but he could not
venture to leave Brussels before the fate of two such important
prisoners was decided. The whole nation loved them, which was not a
little increased by their unhappy fate. Even the strict papists
disapproved of the execution of these eminent nobles. The slightest
advantage which the arms of the rebels might gain over the duke, or even
the report of a defeat, would cause a revolution in Brussels, which
would immediately set the two counts at liberty. Moreover, the
petitions and intercessions which came to the viceroy, as well as to
the King of Spain, from the German princes, increased daily; nay, the
Emperor, Maximilian II., himself caused the countess to be assured "that
she had nothing to fear for the life of her spouse." These powerful
applications might at last turn the king's heart in favor of the
prisoners. The king might, perhaps, in reliance on his viceroy's usual
dispatch, put on the appearance of yielding to the representations of so
many sovereigns, and rescind the sentence of death under the conviction
that his mercy would come too late. These considerations moved the duke
not to delay the execution of the sentence as soon as it was pronounced.

On the day after the sentence was passed the two counts were brought,
under an escort of three thousand Spaniards, from Ghent to Brussels, and
placed in confinement in the Brodhause, in the great market-place. The
next morning the council of twelve were assembled; the duke, contrary to
his custom, attended in person, and both the sentences, in sealed
envelopes, were opened and publicly read by Secretary Pranz. The two
counts were declared guilty of treason, as having favored and promoted
the abominable conspiracy of the Prince of Orange, protected the
confederated nobles, and been convicted of various misdemeanors against
their king and the church in their governments and other appointments.
Both were sentenced to be publicly beheaded, and their heads were to be
fixed upon pikes and not taken down without the duke's express command.
All their possessions, fiefs, and rights escheated to the royal
treasury. The sentence was signed only by the duke and the secretary,
Pranz, without asking or caring for the consent of the other members of
the council.

During the night between the 4th and 5th of June the sentences were
brought to the prisoners, after they had already gone to rest. The duke
gave them to the Bishop of Ypres, Martin Rithov, whom he had expressly
summoned to Brussels to prepare the prisoners for death. When the
bishop received this commission he threw himself at the feet of the
duke, and supplicated him with tears in his eyes for mercy, at least for
respite for the prisoners; but he was answered in a rough and angry
voice that he had been sent for from Ypres, not to oppose the sentence,
but by his spiritual consolation to reconcile the unhappy noblemen to
it.

Egmont was the first to whom the bishop communicated the sentence of
death. "That is indeed a severe sentence," exclaimed the count, turning
pale, and with a faltering voice. "I did not think that I had offended
his majesty so deeply as to deserve such treatment. If, however, it
must be so I submit to my fate with resignation. May this death atone
for my offence, and save my wife and children from suffering. This at
least I think I may claim for my past services. As for death, I will
meet it with composure, since it so pleases God and my king." He then
pressed the bishop to tell him seriously and candidly if there was no
hope of pardon. Being answered in the negative, he confessed and
received the sacrament from the priest, repeating after him the mass
with great devoutness. He asked what prayer was the best and most
effective to recommend him to God in his last hour. On being told that
no prayer could be more effectual than the one which Christ himself had
taught, he prepared immediately to repeat the Lord's prayer. The
thoughts of his family interrupted him; he called for pen and ink, and
wrote two letters, one to his wife, the other to the king. The latter
was as follows:

"Sire,--This morning I have heard the sentence which your majesty has
been pleased to pass upon me. Far as I have ever been from attempting
anything against the person or service of your majesty, or against the
true, old, and Catholic religion, I yet submit myself with patience to
the fate which it has pleased God to ordain should suffer. If, during
the past disturbances, I have omitted, advised, or done anything that
seems at variance with my duty, it was most assuredly performed with the
best intentions, or was forced upon me by the pressure of circumstances.
I therefore pray your majesty to forgive me, and, in consideration of my
past services, show mercy to my unhappy wife, my poor children, and
servants. In a firm hope of this, I commend myself--to the infinite
mercy of God.

"Your majesty's most faithful vassal and servant,

"LAMORAL COUNT EGMONT.

"BRUSSELS, June 5, 1568, near my last moments."


This letter he placed in the hands of the bishop, with the strongest
injunctions for its safe delivery; and for greater security he sent a
duplicate in his own handwriting to State Counsellor Viglius, the most
upright man in the senate, by whom, there is no doubt, it was actually
delivered to the king. The family of the count were subsequently
reinstated in all his property, fiefs, and rights, which, by virtue of
the sentence, had escheated to the royal treasury.

Meanwhile a scaffold had been erected in the marketplace, before the
town hall, on which two poles were fixed with iron spikes, and the whole
covered with black cloth. Two-and-twenty companies of the Spanish
garrison surrounded the scaffold, a precaution which was by no means
superfluous. Between ten and eleven o'clock the Spanish guard appeared
in the apartment of the count; they were provided with cords to tie his
hands according to custom. He begged that this might be spared him, and
declared that he was willing and ready to die. He himself cut off the
collar from his doublet to facilitate the executioner's duty. He wore a
robe of red damask, and over that a black Spanish cloak trimmed with
gold lace. In this dress he appeared on the scaffold, and was attended
by Don Julian Romero, maitre-de-camp; Salinas, a Spanish captain; and
the Bishop of Ypres. The grand provost of the court, with a red wand in
his hand, sat on horseback at the foot of the scaffold; the executioner
was concealed beneath.

Egmont had at first shown a desire to address the people from the
scaffold. He desisted, however, on the bishop's representing to him
that either he would not be heard, or that if he were, he might--such at
present was the dangerous disposition of the people--excite them to acts
of violence, which would only plunge his friends into destruction. For
a few moments he paced the scaffold with noble dignity, and lamented
that it had not been permitted him to die a more honorable death for his
king and his country. Up to the last he seemed unable to persuade
himself that the king was in earnest, and that his severity would be
carried any further than the mere terror of execution. When the
decisive period approached, and he was to receive the extreme unction,
he looked wistfully round, and when there still appeared no prospect of
a reprieve, he turned to Julian Romero, and asked him once more if there
was no hope of pardon for him. Julian Romero shrugged his shoulders,
looked on the ground, and was silent.

He then closely clenched his teeth, threw off his mantle and robe, knelt
upon the cushion, and prepared himself for the last prayer. The bishop
presented him the crucifix to kiss, and administered to him extreme
unction, upon which the count made him a sign to leave him. He drew a
silk cap over his eyes, and awaited the stroke. Over the corpse and the
streaming blood a black cloth was immediately thrown.

All Brussels thronged around the scaffold, and the fatal blow seemed to
fall on every heart. Loud sobs alone broke the appalling silence. The
duke himself, who watched the execution from a window of the townhouse,
wiped his eyes as his victim died.

Shortly afterwards Count Horn advanced on the scaffold. Of a more
violent temperament than his friend, and stimulated by stronger reasons
for hatred against the king, he had received the sentence with less
composure, although in his case, perhaps, it was less unjust. He burst
forth in bitter reproaches against the king, and the bishop with
difficulty prevailed upon him to make a better use of his last moments
than to abuse them in imprecations on his enemies. At last, however, he
became more collected, and made his confession to the bishop, which at
first he was disposed to refuse.

He mounted the scaffold with the same attendants as his friend. In
passing he saluted many of his acquaintances; his hands were, like
Egmont's, free, and he was dressed in a black doublet and cloak, with a
Milan cap of the same color upon his head. When he had ascended, he
cast his eyes upon the corpse, which lay under the cloth, and asked one
of the bystanders if it was the body of his friend. On being answered
in the affirmative, he said some words in Spanish, threw his cloak from
him, and knelt upon the cushion. All shrieked aloud as he received the
fatal blow.

The heads of both were fixed upon the poles which were set up on the
scaffold, where they remained until past three in the afternoon, when
they were taken down, and, with the two bodies, placed in leaden coffins
and deposited in a vault.

In spite of the number of spies and executioners who surrounded the
scaffold, the citizens of Brussels would not be prevented from dipping
their handkerchiefs in the streaming blood, and carrying home with them
these precious memorials.




  SIEGE OF ANTWERP BY THE PRINCE OF PARMA, IN THE YEARS 1584 AND 1585.

It is an interesting spectacle to observe the struggle of man's
inventive genius in conflict with powerful opposing elements, and to
see the difficulties which are insurmountable to ordinary capacities
overcome by prudence, resolution, and a determined will. Less
attractive, but only the more instructive, perhaps, is the contrary
spectacle, where the absence of those qualities renders all efforts of
genius vain, throws away all the favors of fortune, and where inability
to improve such advantages renders hopeless a success which otherwise
seemed sure and inevitable. Examples of both kinds are afforded by the
celebrated siege of Antwerp by the Spaniards towards the close of the
sixteenth century, by which that flourishing city was forever deprived
of its commercial prosperity, but which, on the other hand, conferred
immortal fame on the general who undertook and accomplished it.

Twelve years had the war continued which the northern provinces of
Belgium had commenced at first in vindication simply of their religious
freedom, and the privileges of their states, from the encroachments of
the Spanish viceroy, but maintained latterly in the hope of establishing
their independence of the Spanish crown. Never completely victors, but
never entirely vanquished, they wearied out the Spanish valor by tedious
operations on an unfavorable soil, and exhausted the wealth of the
sovereign of both the Indies while they themselves were called beggars,
and in a degree actually were so. The league of Ghent, which had united
the whole Netherlands, Roman Catholic and Protestant, in a common and
(could such a confederation have lasted) invincible body, was indeed
dissolved; but in place of this uncertain and unnatural combination the
northern provinces had, in the year 1579, formed among themselves the
closer union of Utrecht, which promised to be more lasting, inasmuch as
it was linked and held together by common political and religious
interests. What the new republic had lost in extent through this
separation from the Roman Catholic provinces it was fully compensated
for by the closeness of alliance, the unity of enterprise, and energy of
execution; and perhaps it was fortunate in thus timely losing what no
exertion probably would ever have enabled it to retain.

The greater part of the Walloon provinces had, in the year 1584, partly
by voluntary submission and partly by force of arms, been again reduced
under the Spanish yoke. The northern districts alone had been able at
all successfully to oppose it. A considerable portion of Brabant and
Flanders still obstinately held out against the arms of the Duke
Alexander of Parma, who at that time administered the civil government
of the provinces, and the supreme command of the army, with equal energy
and prudence, and by a series of splendid victories had revived the
military reputation of Spain. The peculiar formation of the country,
which by its numerous rivers and canals facilitated the connection of
the towns with one another and with the sea, baffled all attempts
effectually to subdue it, and the possession of one place could only be
maintained by the occupation of another. So long as this communication
was kept up Holland and Zealand could with little difficulty assist
their allies, and supply them abundantly by water as well as by land
with all necessaries, so that valor was of no use, and the strength of
the king's troops was fruitlessly wasted on tedious sieges.

Of all the towns in Brabant Antwerp was the most important, as well
from, its wealth, its population, and its military force, as by its
position on the mouth of the Scheldt. This great and populous town,
which at this date contained more than eighty thousand inhabitants, was
one of the most active members of the national league, and had in the
course of the war distinguished itself above all the towns of Belgium by
an untamable spirit of liberty. As it fostered within its bosom all the
three Christian churches, and owed much of its prosperity to this
unrestricted religious liberty, it had the more cause to dread the
Spanish rule, which threatened to abolish this toleration, and by the
terror of the Inquisition to drive all the Protestant merchants from its
markets. Moreover it had had but too terrible experience of the
brutality of the Spanish garrisons, and it was quite evident that if it
once more suffered this insupportable yoke to be imposed upon it it
would never again during the whole course of the war be able to throw it
off.

But powerful as were the motives which stimulated Antwerp to resistance,
equally strong were the reasons which determined the Spanish general to
make himself master of the place at any cost. On the possession of this
town depended in a great measure that of the whole province of Brabant,
which by this channel chiefly derived its supplies of corn from Zealand,
while the capture of this place would secure to the victor the command
of the Scheldt. It would also deprive the league of Brabant, which held
its meetings in the town, of its principal support; the whole faction of
its dangerous influence, of its example, its counsels, and its money,
while the treasures of its inhabitants would open plentiful supplies for
the military exigencies of the king. Its fall would sooner or later
necessarily draw after it that of all Brabant, and the preponderance of
power in that quarter would decide the whole dispute in favor of the
king. Determined by these grave considerations, the Duke of Parma drew
his forces together in July, 1584, and advanced from his position at
Dornick to the neighborhood of Antwerp, with the intention of investing
it.

But both the natural position and fortifications of the town appeared to
defy attacks. Surrounded on the side of Brabant with insurmountable
works and moats, and towards Flanders covered by the broad and rapid
stream of the Scheldt, it could not be carried by storm; and to blockade
a town of such extent seemed to require a land force three times larger
than that which the duke had, and moreover a fleet, of which he was
utterly destitute. Not only did the river yield the town all necessary
supplies from Ghent, it also opened an easy communication with the
bordering province of Zealand. For, as the tide of the North Sea
extends far up the Scheldt, and ebbs and flows regularly, Antwerp enjoys
the peculiar advantage that the same tide flows past it at different
times in two opposite directions. Besides, the adjacent towns of
Brussels, Malines, Ghent, Dendermonde, and others, were all at this time
in the hands of the league, and could aid the place from the land side
also. To blockade, therefore, the town by land, and to cut off its
communication with Flanders and Brabant, required two different armies,
one on each bank of the river. A sufficient fleet was likewise needed
to guard the passage of the Scheldt, and to prevent all attempts at
relief, which would most certainly be made from Zealand. But by the war
which he had still to carry on in other quarters, and by the numerous
garrisons which he was obliged to leave in the towns and fortified
places, the army of the duke was reduced to ten thousand infantry and
seventeen hundred horse, a force very inadequate for an undertaking of
such magnitude. Moreover, these troops were deficient in the most
necessary supplies, and the long arrears of pay had excited them to
subdued murmurs, which hourly threatened to break out into open mutiny.
If, notwithstanding these difficulties, he should still attempt the
siege, there would be much occasion to fear from the strongholds of the
enemy, which were left in the rear, and from which it would be easy, by
vigorous sallies, to annoy an army distributed over so many places, and
to expose it to want by cutting off its supplies.

All these considerations were brought forward by the council of war,
before which the Duke of Parrna now laid his scheme. However great the
confidence which they placed in themselves, and in the proved abilities
of such a leader, nevertheless the most experienced generals did not
disguise their despair of a fortunate result. Two only were exceptions,
Capizucchi and Mondragone, whose ardent courage placed them above all
apprehensions; the rest concurred in dissuading the duke from attempting
so hazardous an enterprise, by which they ran the risk of forfeiting the
fruit of all their former victories and tarnishing the glory they had
already earned.

But objections, which he had already made to himself and refuted, could
not shake the Duke of Parma in his purpose. Not in ignorance of its
inseparable dangers, not from thoughtless overvaluing his forces had he
taken this bold resolve. But that instinctive genius which leads great
men by paths which inferior minds either never enter upon or never
finish, raised him above the influence of the doubts which a cold and
narrow prudence would oppose to his views; and, without being able to
convince his generals, he felt the correctness of his calculations in a
conviction indistinct, indeed, but not on that account less indubitable.
A succession of fortunate results had raised his confidence, and the
sight of his army, unequalled in Europe for discipline, experience, and
valor, and commanded by a chosen body of the most distinguished
officers, did not permit him to entertain fear for a moment. To those
who objected to the small number of his troops, he answered, that
however long the pike, it is only the point that kills; and that in
military enterprise, the moving power was of more importance than the
mass to be moved. He was aware, indeed, of the discontent of his
troops, but he knew also their obedience; and he thought, moreover, that
the best means to stifle their murmurs was by keeping them employed in
some important undertaking, by stimulating their desire of glory by the
splendor of the enterprise, and their rapacity by hopes of the rich
booty which the capture of so wealthy a town would hold out.

In the plan which he now formed for the conduct of the siege he
endeavored to meet all these difficulties. Famine was the only
instrument by which he could hope to subdue the town; but effectually to
use this formidable weapon, it would be expedient to cut off all its
land and water communications. With this view, the first object was to
stop, or at least to impede, the arrival of supplies from Zealand. It
was, therefore, requisite not only to carry all the outworks, which the
people of Antwerp had built on both shores of the Scheldt for the
protection of their shipping; but also, wherever feasible, to throw up
new batteries which should command the whole course of the river; and to
prevent the place from drawing supplies from the land side, while
efforts were being made to intercept their transmission by sea, all the
adjacent towns of Brabant and Flanders were comprehended in the plan of
the siege, and the fall of Antwerp was based on the destruction of all
those places. A bold and, considering the duke's scanty force, an
almost extravagant project, which was, however, justified by the genius
of its author, and crowned by fortune with a brilliant result.

As, however, time was required to accomplish a plan of this magnitude,
the Prince of Parma was content, for the present, with the erection of
numerous forts on the canals and rivers which connected Antwerp with
Dendermonde, Ghent, Malines, Brussels, and other places. Spanish
garrisons were quartered in the vicinity, and almost at the very gates
of those towns, which laid waste the open country, and by their
incursions kept the surrounding territory in alarm. Thus, round Ghent
alone were encamped about three thousand men, and proportionate numbers
round the other towns. In this way, and by means of the secret
understanding which he maintained with the Roman Catholic inhabitants of
those towns, the duke hoped, without weakening his own forces, gradually
to exhaust their strength, and by the harassing operations of a petty
but incessant warfare, even without any formal siege, to reduce them at
last to capitulate.

In the meantime the main force was directed against Antwerp, which he
now closely invested. He fixed his headquarters at Bevern in Flanders,
a few miles from Antwerp, where he found a fortified camp. The
protection of the Flemish bank of the Scheldt was entrusted to the
Margrave of Rysburg, general of cavalry; the Brabant bank to the Count
Peter Ernest Von Mansfeld, who was joined by another Spanish leader,
Mondragone. Both the latter succeeded in crossing the Scheldt upon
pontoons, notwithstanding the Flemish admiral's ship was sent to oppose
them, and, passing Antwerp, took up their position at Stabroek in
Bergen. Detached corps dispersed themselves along the whole Brabant
side, partly to secure the dykes and the roads.

Some miles below Antwerp the Scheldt was guarded by two strong forts, of
which one was situated at Liefkenshoek on the island Doel, in Flanders,
the other at Lillo, exactly opposite the coast of Brabant. The last had
been erected by Mondragone himself, by order of the Duke of Alvaa, when
the latter was still master of Antwerp, and for this very reason the
Duke of Parma now entrusted to him the attack upon it. On the
possession of these two forts the success of the siege seemed wholly to
depend, since all the vessels sailing from Zealand to Antwerp must pass
under their guns. Both forts had a short time before been strengthened
by the besieged, and the former was scarcely finished when the Margrave
of Rysburg attacked it. The celerity with which he went to work
surprised the enemy before they were sufficiently prepared for defence,
and a brisk assault quickly placed Liefkenshoek in the hands of the
Spaniards. The confederates sustained this loss on the same fatal day
that the Prince of Orange fell at Delft by the hands of an assassin.
The other batteries, erected on the island of Doel, were partly
abandoned by their defenders, partly taken by surprise, so that in a
short time the whole Flemish side was cleared of the enemy. But the
fort at Lillo, on the Brabant shore, offered a more vigorous resistance,
since the people of Antwerp had had time to strengthen its
fortifications and to provide it with a strong garrison. Furious
sallies of the besieged, led by Odets von Teligny, supported by the
cannon of the fort, destroyed all the works of the Spaniards, and an
inundation, which was effected by opening the sluices, finally drove
them away from the place after a three weeks' siege, and with the loss
of nearly two thousand killed. They now retired into their fortified
camp at Stabroek, and contented themselves with taking possession of the
dams which run across the lowlands of Bergen, and oppose a breastwork to
the encroachments of the East Scheldt.

The failure of his attempt upon the fort of Lillo compelled the Prince
of Parma to change his measures. As he could not succeed in stopping
the passage of the Scheldt by his original plan, on which the success of
the siege entirely depended, he determined to effect his purpose by
throwing a bridge across the whole breadth of the river. The thought
was bold, and there were many who held it to be rash. Both the breadth
of the stream, which at this part exceeds twelve hundred paces, as well
as its violence, which is still further augmented by the tides of the
neighboring sea, appeared to render every attempt of this kind
impracticable. Moreover, he had to contend with a deficiency of timber,
vessels, and workmen, as well as with the dangerous position between the
fleets of Antwerp and of Zealand, to which it would necessarily be an
easy task, in combination with a boisterous element, to interrupt so
tedious a work. But the Prince of Parma knew his power, and his settled
resolution would yield to nothing short of absolute impossibility.
After he had caused the breadth as well as the depth of the river to be
measured, and had consulted with two of his most skilful engineers,
Barocci and Plato, it was settled that the bridge should be constructed
between Calloo in Flanders and Ordain in Brabant. This spot was
selected because the river is here narrowest, and bends a little to the
right, and so detains vessels a while by compelling them to tack. To
cover the bridge strong bastions were erected at both ends, of which the
one on the Flanders side was named Fort St. Maria, the other, on the
Brabant side, Fort St. Philip, in honor of the king.

While active preparations were making in the Spanish camp for the
execution of this scheme, and the whole attention of the enemy was
directed to it, the duke made an unexpected attack upon Dendermonde, a
strong town between Ghent and Antwerp, at the confluence of the Dender
and the Scheldt. As long as this important place was in the hands of
the enemy the towns of Ghent and Antwerp could mutually support each
other, and by the facility of their communication frustrate all the
efforts of the besiegers. Its capture would leave the prince free to
act against both towns, and might decide the fate of his undertaking.
The rapidity of his attack left the besieged no time to open their
sluices and lay the country under water. A hot cannonade was opened
upon the chief bastion of the town before the Brussels gate, but was
answered by the fire of the besieged, which made great havoc amongst the
Spaniards. It increased, however, rather than discouraged their ardor,
and the insults of the garrison, who mutilated the statue of a saint
before their eyes, and after treating it with the most contumelious
indignity, hurled it down from the rampart, raised their fury to the
highest pitch. Clamorously they demanded to be led against the bastion
before their fire had made a sufficient breach in it, and the prince, to
avail himself of the first ardor of their impetuosity, gave the signal
for the assault. After a sanguinary contest of two hours the rampart
was mounted, and those who were not sacrificed to the first fury of the
Spaniards threw themselves into the town. The latter was indeed now
more exposed, a fire being directed upon it from the works which had
been carried; but its strong walls and the broad moat which surrounded
it gave reason to expect a protracted resistance. The inventive
resources of the Prince of Parma soon overcame this obstacle also.
While the bombardment was carried on night and day, the troops were
incessantly employed in diverting the course of the Dender, which
supplied the fosse with water, and the besieged were seized with despair
as they saw the water of the trenches, the last defence of the town,
gradually disappear. They hastened to capitulate, and in August, 1584,
received a Spanish garrison. Thus, in the space of eleven days, the
Prince of Parrna accomplished an undertaking which, in the opinion of
competent judges, would require as many weeks.

The town of Ghent, now cut off from Antwerp and the sea, and hard
pressed by the troops of the king, which were encamped in its vicinity,
and without hope of immediate succor, began to despair, as famine, with
all its dreadful train, advanced upon them with rapid steps. The
inhabitants therefore despatched deputies to the Spanish camp at Bevern,
to tender its submission to the king upon the same terms as the prince
had a short time previously offered. The deputies were informed that
the time for treaties was past, and that an unconditional submission
alone could appease the just anger of the monarch whom they had offended
by their rebellion. Nay, they were even given to understand that it
would be only through his great mercy if the same humiliation were not
exacted from them as their rebellious ancestors were forced to undergo
under Charles V., namely, to implore pardon half-naked, and with a cord
round their necks. The deputies returned to Ghent in despair, but three
days afterwards a new deputation was sent to the Spanish camp, which at
last, by the intercession of one of the prince's friends, who was a
prisoner in Ghent, obtained peace upon moderate terms. The town was to
pay a fine of two hundred thousand florins, recall the banished papists,
and expel the Protestant inhabitants, who, however, were to be allowed
two years for the settlement of their affairs. All the inhabitants
except six, who were reserved for capital punishment (but afterwards
pardoned), were included in a general amnesty, and the garrison, which
amounted to two thousand men, was allowed to evacuate the place with the
honors of war. This treaty was concluded in September of the same year,
at the headquarters at Bevern, and immediately three thousand Spaniards
marched into the town as a garrison.

It was more by the terror of his name and the dread of famine than by
the force of arms that the Prince of Parma had succeeded in reducing
this city to submission, the largest and strongest in the Netherlands,
which was little inferior to Paris within the barriers of its inner
town, consisted of thirty-seven thousand houses, and was built on twenty
islands, connected by ninety-eight stone bridges. The important
privileges which in the course of several centuries this city had
contrived to extort from its rulers fostered in its inhabitants a spirit
of independence, which not unfrequently degenerated into riot and
license, and naturally brought it in collision with the Austrian-Spanish
government. And it was exactly this bold spirit of liberty which
procured for the Reformation the rapid and extensive success it met with
in this town, and the combined incentives of civil and religious freedom
produced all those scenes of violence by which, during the rebellion, it
had unfortunately distinguished itself. Besides the fine levied, the
prince found within the walls a large store of artillery, carriages,
ships, and building materials of all kinds, with numerous workmen and
sailors, who materially aided him in his plans against Antwerp.

Before Ghent surrendered to the king Vilvorden and Herentals had fallen
into the hands of the Spaniards, and the capture of the block-houses
near the village of Willebrock had cut off Antwerp from Brussels and
Malines. The loss of these places within so short a period deprived
Antwerp of all hope of succor from Brabant and Flanders, and limited all
their expectations to the assistance which might be looked for from
Zealand. But to deprive them also of this the Prince of Parma was now
making the most energetic preparations.

The citizens of Antwerp had beheld the first operations of the enemy
against their town with the proud security with which the sight of their
invincible river inspired them. This confidence was also in a degree
justified by the opinion of the Prince of Orange, who, upon the first
intelligence of the design, had said that the Spanish army would
inevitably perish before the walls of Antwerp. That nothing, however,
might be neglected, he sent, a short time before his assassination, for
the burgomaster of Antwerp, Philip Marnix of St. Aldegonde, his intimate
friend, to Delft, where he consulted with him as to the means of
maintaining defensive operations. It was agreed between then that it
would be advisable to demolish forthwith the great dam between Sanvliet
and Lillo called the Blaaugarendyk, so as to allow the waters of the
East Scheldt to inundate, if necessary, the lowlands of Bergen, and
thus, in the event of the Scheldt being closed, to open a passage for
the Zealand vessels to the town across the inundated country. Aldegonde
had, after his return, actually persuaded the magistrate and the
majority of the citizens to agree to this proposal, when it was resisted
by the guild of butchers, who claimed that they would be ruined by such
a measure; for the plain which it was wished to lay under water was a
vast tract of pasture land, upon which about twelve thousand oxen--were
annually put to graze. The objection of the butchers was successful,
and they managed to prevent the execution of this salutary scheme until
the enemy had got possession of the dams as well as the pasture land.

At the suggestion of the burgomaster St. Aldegonde, who, himself a
member of the states of Brabant, was possessed of great authority in
that council, the fortifications on both sides the Scheldt had, a short
time before the arrival of the Spaniards, been placed in repair, and
many new redoubts erected round the town. The dams had been cut through
at Saftingen, and the water of the West Scheldt let out over nearly the
whole country of Waes. In the adjacent Marquisate of Bergen troops had
been enlisted by the Count of Hohenlohe, and a Scotch regiment, under
the command of Colonel Morgan, was already in the pay of the republic,
while fresh reinforcements were daily expected from England and France.
Above all, the states of Holland and Zealand were called upon to hasten
their supplies. But after the enemy had taken strong positions on both
sides of the river, and the fire of their batteries made the navigation
dangerous, when place after place in Brabant fell into their hands, and
their cavalry had cut off all communication on the land side, the
inhabitants of Antwerp began at last to entertain serious apprehensions
for the future. The town then contained eighty-five thousand souls, and
according to calculation three hundred thousand quarters of corn were
annually required for their support. At the beginning of the siege
neither the supply nor the money was wanting for the laying in of such a
store; for in spite of the enemy's fire the Zealand victualling ships,
taking advantage of the rising tide, contrived to make their way to the
town. All that was requisite was to prevent any of the richer citizens
from buying up these supplies, and, in case of scarcity, raising the
price. To secure his object, one Gianibelli from Mantua, who had
rendered important services in the course of the siege, proposed a
property tax of one penny in every hundred, and the appointment of a
board of respectable persons to purchase corn with this money, and
distribute it weekly. And until the returns of this tax should be
available the richer classes should advance the required sum, holding
the corn purchased, as a deposit, in their own magazines; and were also
to share in the profit. But this plan was unwelcome to the wealthier
citizens, who had resolved to profit by the general distress. They
recommended that every individual should be required to provide himself
with a sufficient supply for two years; a proposition which, however it
might suit their own circumstances, was very unreasonable in regard to
the poorer inhabitants, who, even before the siege, could scarcely find
means to supply themselves for so many months. They obtained indeed
their object, which was to reduce the poor to the necessity of either
quitting the place or becoming entirely their dependents. But when they
afterwards reflected that in the time of need the rights of property
would not be respected, they found it advisable not to be over-hasty in
making their own purchases.

The magistrate, in order to avert an evil that would have pressed upon
individuals only, had recourse to an expedient which endangered the
safety of all. Some enterprising persons in Zealand had freighted a
large fleet with provisions, which succeeded in passing the guns of the
enemy, and discharged its cargo at Antwerp. The hope of a large profit
had tempted the merchants to enter upon this hazardous speculation; in
this, however, they were disappointed, as the magistrate of Antwerp had,
just before their arrival, issued an edict regulating the price of all
the necessaries of life. At the same time to prevent individuals from
buying up the whole cargo and storing it in their magazines with a view
of disposing of it afterwards at a dearer rate, he ordered that the
whole should be publicly sold in any quantities from the vessels. The
speculators, cheated of their hopes of profit by these precautions, set
sail again, and left Antwerp with the greater part of their cargo, which
would have sufficed for the support of the town for several months.

This neglect of the most essential and natural means of preservation can
only be explained by the supposition that the inhabitants considered it
absolutely impossible ever to close the Scheldt completely, and
consequently had not the least apprehension that things would come to
extremity. When the intelligence arrived in Antwerp that the prince
intended to throw a bridge over the Scheldt the idea was universally
ridiculed as chimerical. An arrogant comparison was drawn between the
republic and the stream, and it was said that the one would bear the
Spanish yoke as little as the other. "A river which is twenty-four
hundred feet broad, and, with its own waters alone, above sixty feet
deep, but which with the tide rose twelve feet more--would such a
stream," it was asked, "submit to be spanned by a miserable piece of
paling? Where were beams to be found high enough to reach to the bottom
and project above the surface? and how was a work of this kind to stand
in winter, when whole islands and mountains of ice, which stone walls
could hardly resist, would be driven by the flood against its weak
timbers, and splinter them to pieces like glass? Or, perhaps, the
prince purposed to construct a bridge of boats; if so, where would he
procure the latter, and how bring them into his intrenchments? They
must necessarily be brought past Antwerp, where a fleet was ready to
capture or sink them."

But while they were trying to prove the absurdity of the Prince of
Parma's undertaking he had already completed it. As soon as the forts
St. Maria and St. Philip were erected, and protected the workmen and the
work by their fire, a pier was built out into the stream from both
banks, for which purpose the masts of the largest vessels were employed;
by a skilful arrangement of the timbers they contrived to give the whole
such solidity that, as the result proved, it was able to resist the
violent pressure of the ice. These timbers, which rested firmly and
securely on the bottom of the river, and projected a considerable height
above it, being covered with planks, afforded a commodious roadway. It
was wide enough to allow eight men to cross abreast, and a balustrade
that ran along it on both sides, protected them from the fire of
small-arms from the enemy's vessels. This "stacade," as it was called,
ran from the two opposite shores as far as the increasing depth and force
of the stream allowed. It reduced the breadth of the river to about
eleven hundred feet; as, however, the middle and proper current would not
admit of such a barrier, there remained, therefore, between the two
stacades a space of more than six hundred paces through which a whole
fleet of transports could sail with ease. This intervening space the
prince designed to close by a bridge of boats, for which purpose the
craft must be procured from Dunkirk. But, besides that they could not be
obtained in any number at that place, it would be difficult to bring them
past Antwerp without great loss. He was, therefore, obliged to content
himself for the time with having narrowed the stream one-half, and
rendered the passage of the enemy's vessels so much the more difficult.
Where the stacades terminated in the middle of the stream they spread out
into parallelograms, which were mounted with heavy guns, and served as a
kind of battery on the water. From these a heavy fire was opened on every
vessel that attempted to pass through this narrow channel. Whole fleets,
however, and single vessels still attempted and succeeded in passing this
dangerous strait.

Meanwhile Ghent surrendered, and this unexpected success at once rescued
the prince from his dilemma. He found in this town everything necessary
to complete his bridge of boats; and the only difficulty now was its
safe transport, which was furnished by the enemy themselves. By cutting
the dams at Saftingen a great part of the country of Waes, as far as the
village of Borcht, had been laid under water, so that it was not
difficult to cross it with flat-bottomed boats. The prince, therefore,
ordered his vessels to run out from Ghent, and after passing Dendermonde
and Rupelmonde to pass through the left dyke of the Scheldt, leaving
Antwerp to the right, and sail over the inundated fields in the
direction of Borcht. To protect this passage a fort was erected at the
latter village, which would keep the enemy in check. All succeeded to
his wishes, though not without a sharp action with the enemy's flotilla,
which was sent out to intercept this convoy. After breaking through a
few more dams on their route, they reached the Spanish quarters at
Calloo, and successfully entered the Scheldt again. The exultation of
the army was greater when they discovered the extent of the danger the
vessels had so narrowly escaped. Scarcely had they got quit of the
enemy's vessels when a strong reinforcement from Antwerp got under
weigh, commanded by the valiant defender of Lillo, Odets von Teligny.
When this officer saw that the affair was over, and that the enemy had
escaped, he took possession of the dam through which their fleet had
passed, and threw up a fort on the spot in order to stop the passage of
any vessels from Ghent which might attempt to follow them.

By this step the prince was again thrown into embarrassment. He was far
from having as yet a sufficient number of vessels, either for the
construction of the bridge or for its defence, and the passage by which
the former convoy had arrived was now closed by the fort erected by
Teligny. While he was reconnoitring the country to discover a new way
for his, fleets an idea occurred to him which not only put an end to his
present dilemma, but greatly accelerated the success of his whole plan.
Not far from the village of Stecken, in Waes, which is within some five
thousand paces of the commencement of the inundation, flows a small
stream called the Moer, which falls into the Scheldt near Ghent. From
this river he caused a canal to be dug to the spot where the inundations
began, and as the water of these was not everywhere deep enough for the
transit of his boats, the canal between Bevern and Verrebroek was
continued to Calloo, where it was met by the Scheldt. At this work five
hundred pioneers labored without intermission, and in order to cheer the
toil of the soldiers the prince himself took part in it. In this way
did he imitate the example of the two celebrated Romans, Drusus and
Corbulo, who by similar works had united the Rhine with the Zuyder Zee,
and the Maes with the Rhine?

This canal, which the army in honor of its projector called the canal of
Parma, was fourteen thousand paces in length, and was of proportion able
depth and breadth, so as to be navigable for ships of a considerable
burden. It afforded to the vessels from Ghent not only a more secure,
but also a much shorter course to the Spanish quarters, because it was
no longer necessary to follow the many windings of the Scheldt, but
entering the Moer at once near Ghent, and from thence passing close to
Stecken, they could proceed through the canal and across the inundated
country as far as Calloo. As the produce of all Flanders was brought to
the town of Ghent, this canal placed the Spanish camp in communication
with the whole province. Abundance poured into the camp from all
quarters, so that during the whole course of the siege the Spaniards
suffered no scarcity of any kind. But the greatest benefit which the
prince derived from this work was an adequate supply of flat-bottomed
vessels to complete his bridge.

These preparations were overtaken by the arrival of winter, which, as
the Scheldt was filled with drift-ice, occasioned a considerable delay
in the building of the bridge. The prince had contemplated with anxiety
the approach of this season, lest it should prove highly destructive to
the work he had undertaken, and afford the enemy a favorable opportunity
for making a serious attack upon it. But the skill of his engineers
saved him from the one danger, and the strange inaction of the enemy
freed him from the other. It frequently happened, indeed, that at
flood-time large pieces of ice were entangled in the timbers, and shook
them violently, but they stood the assault of the furious element, which
only served to prove their stability.

In Antwerp, meanwhile, important moments had been wasted in futile
deliberations; and in a struggle of factions the general welfare was
neglected. The government of the town was divided among too many heads,
and much too great a share in it was held by the riotous mob to allow
room for calmness of deliberation or firmness of action. Besides the
municipal magistracy itself, in which the burgomaster had only a single
voice, there were in the city a number of guilds, to whom were consigned
the charge of the internal and external defence, the provisioning of the
town, its fortifications, the marine, commerce, etc.; some of whom must
be consulted in every business of importance. By means of this crowd of
speakers, who intruded at pleasure into the council, and managed to
carry by clamor and the number of their adherents what they could not
effect by their arguments, the people obtained a dangerous influence
in the public debates, and the natural struggle of such discordant
interests retarded the execution of every salutary measure.
A government so vacillating and impotent could not command the respect
of unruly sailors and a lawless soldiery. The orders of the state
consequently were but imperfectly obeyed, and the decisive moment was
more than once lost by the negligence, not to say the open mutiny, both
of the land and sea forces. The little harmony in the selection of the
means by which the enemy was to be opposed would not, however, have
proved so injurious had there but existed unanimity as to the end. But
on this very point the wealthy citizens and poorer classes were divided;
so the former, having everything to apprehend from allowing matters to
be carried to extremity, were strongly inclined to treat with the Prince
of Parma. This disposition they did not even attempt to conceal after
the fort of Liefkenshoek had fallen into the enemy's hands, and serious
fears were entertained for the navigation of the Scheldt. Some of them,
indeed, withdrew entirely from the danger, and left to its fate the
town, whose prosperity they had been ready enough to share, but in whose
adversity they were unwilling to bear a part. From sixty to seventy of
those who remained memorialized the council, advising that terms should
be made with the king. No sooner, however, had the populace got
intelligence of it than their indignation broke out in a violent uproar,
which was with difficulty appeased by the imprisonment and fining of the
petitioners. Tranquillity could only be fully restored by publication
of an edict, which imposed the penalty of death on all who either
publicly or privately should countenance proposals for peace.

The Prince of Parma did not fail to take advantage of these
disturbances; for nothing that transpired within the city escaped his
notice, being well served by the agents with whom he maintained a secret
understanding with Antwerp, as well as the other towns of Brabant and
Flanders. Although he had already made considerable progress in his
measures for distressing the town, still he had many steps to take
before he could actually make himself master of it; and one unlucky
moment might destroy the work of many months. Without, therefore,
neglecting any of his warlike preparations, he determined to make one
more serious attempt to get possession by fair means. With this object
he despatched a letter in November to the great council of Antwerp, in
which he skilfully made use of every topic likely to induce the citizens
to come to terms, or at least to increase their existing dissensions.
He treated them in this letter in the light of persons who had been led
astray, and threw the whole blame of their revolt and refractory conduct
hitherto upon the intriguing spirit of the Prince of Orange, from whose
artifices the retributive justice of heaven had so lately liberated
them. "It was," he said, "now in their power to awake from their long
infatuation and return to their allegiance to a monarch who was ready
and anxious to be reconciled to his subjects. For this end he gladly
offered himself as mediator, as he had never ceased to love a country in
which he had been born, and where he had spent the happiest days of his
youth. He therefore exhorted them to send plenipotentiaries with whom
he could arrange the conditions of peace, and gave them hopes of
obtaining reasonable terms if they made a timely submission, but also
threatened them with the severest treatment if they pushed matters to
extremity."

This letter, in which we are glad to recognize a language very different
from that which the Duke of Alva held ten years before on a similar
occasion, was answered by the townspeople in a respectful and dignified
tone. While they did full justice to the personal character of the
prince, and acknowledged his favorable intentions towards them with
gratitude, they lamented the hardness of the times, which placed it out
of his power to treat them in accordance with his character and
disposition. They declared that they would gladly place their fate in
his hands if he were absolute master of his actions, instead of being
obliged to obey the will of another, whose proceedings his own candor
would not allow him to approve of. The unalterable resolution of the
King of Spain, as well as the vow which he had made to the pope, were
only too well known for them to have any hopes in that quarter. They at
the same time defended with a noble warmth the memory of the Prince of
Orange, their benefactor and preserver, while they enumerated the true
cases which had produced this unhappy war, and had caused the provinces
to revolt from the Spanish crown. At the same time they did not
disguise from him that they had hopes of finding a new and a milder
master in the King of France, and that, if only for this reason, they
could not enter into any treaty with the Spanish king without incurring
the charge of the most culpable fickleness and ingratitude.

The united provinces, in fact, dispirited by a succession of reverses,
had at last come to the determination of placing themselves under the
protection and sovereignty of France, and of preserving their existence
and their ancient privileges by the sacrifice of their independence.
With this view an embassy had some time before been despatched to Paris,
and it was the prospect of this powerful assistance which principally
supported the courage of the people of Antwerp. Henry III., King of
France, was personally disposed to accept this offer; but the troubles
which the intrigues of the Spaniards contrived to excite within his own
kingdom compelled him against his will to abandon it. The provinces now
turned for assistance to Queen Elizabeth of England, who sent them some
supplies, which, however, came too late to save Antwerp. While the
people of this city were awaiting the issue of these negotiations, and
expecting aid from foreign powers, they neglected, unfortunately, the
most natural and immediate means of defence; the whole winter was lost,
and while the enemy turned it to greater advantage the more complete was
their indecision and inactivity.

The burgomaster of Antwerp, St. Aldegonde, had, indeed, repeatedly urged
the fleet of Zealand to attack the enemy's works, which should be
supported on the other side from Antwerp. The long and frequently
stormy nights would favor this attempt, and if at the same time a sally
were made by the garrison at Lillo, it seemed scarcely possible for
the enemy to resist this triple assault. But unfortunately
misunderstandings had arisen between the commander of the fleet, William
von Blois von Treslong, and the admiralty of Zealand, which caused the
equipment of the fleet to be most unaccountably delayed. In order to
quicken their movements Teligny at last resolved to go himself to
Middleburg, were the states of Zealand were assembled; but as the enemy
were in possession of all the roads the attempt cost him his freedom and
the republic its most valiant defender. However, there was no want of
enterprising vessels, which, under the favor of the night and the
floodtide, passing through the still open bridge in spite of the enemy's
fire, threw provisions into the town and returned with the ebb. But as
many of these vessels fell into the hands of the enemy the council gave
orders that they should never risk the passage unless they amounted to a
certain number; and the result, unfortunately, was that none attempted
it because the required number could not be collected at one time.
Several attacks were also made from Antwerp on the ships of the
Spaniards, which were not entirely unsuccessful; some of the latter were
captured, others sunk, and all that was required was to execute similar
attempts on a grand scale. But however zealously St. Aldegonde urged
this, still not a captain was to be found who would command a vessel for
that purpose.

Amid these delays the winter expired, and scarcely had the ice begun to
disappear when the construction of the bridge of boats was actively
resumed by the besiegers. Between the two piers a space of more than
six hundred paces still remained to be filled up, which was effected in
the following manner: Thirty-two flat-bottomed vessels, each sixty-six
feet long and twenty broad, were fastened together with strong cables
and iron chains, but at a distance from each other of about twenty feet
to allow a free passage to the stream. Each boat, moreover, was moored
with two cables, both up and down the stream, but which, as the water
rose with the tide, or sunk with the ebb, could be slackened or
tightened. Upon the boats great masts were laid which reached from one
to another, and, being covered with planks, formed a regular road,
which, like that along the piers, was protected with a balustrade. This
bridge of boats, of which the two piers formed a continuation, had,
including the latter, a length of twenty-four thousand paces. This
formidable work was so ingeniously constructed, and so richly furnished
with the instruments of destruction, that it seemed almost capable, like
a living creature, of defending itself at the word of command,
scattering death among all who approached. Besides the two forts of St.
Maria and St. Philip, which terminated the bridge on either shore, and
the two wooden bastions on the bridge itself, which were filled with
soldiers and mounted with guns on all sides, each of the two-and-thirty
vessels was manned with thirty soldiers and four sailors, and showed the
cannon's mouth to the enemy, whether he came up from Zealand or down
from Antwerp. There were in all ninety-seven cannon, which were
distributed beneath and above the bridge, and more than fifteen hundred
men who were posted, partly in the forts, partly in the vessels, and, in
case of necessity, could maintain a terrible fire of small-arms upon the
enemy.

But with all this the prince did not consider his work sufficiently
secure. It was to be expected that the enemy would leave nothing
unattempted to burst by the force of his machines the middle and weakest
part. To guard against this, he erected in a line with the bridge of
boats, but at some distance from it, another distinct defence, intended
to break the force of any attack that might be directed against the
bridge itself. This work consisted of thirty-three vessels of
considerable magnitude, which were moored in a row athwart the stream
and fastened in threes by masts, so that they formed eleven different
groups. Each of these, like a file of pikemen, presented fourteen long
wooden poles with iron heads to the approaching enemy. These vessels
were loaded merely with ballast, and were anchored each by a double but
slack cable, so as to be able to give to the rise and fall of the tide.
As they were in constant motion they got from the soldiers the name of
"swimmers." The whole bridge of boats and also a part of the piers were
covered by these swimmers, which were stationed above as well as below
the bridge. To all these defensive preparations was added a fleet of
forty men-of-war, which were stationed on both coasts and served as a
protection to the whole.

This astonishing work was finished in March, 1585, the seventh month of
the siege, and the day on which it was completed was kept as a jubilee
by the troops. The great event was announced to the besieged by a grand
_fete de joie_, and the army, as if to enjoy ocular demonstration of its
triumph, extended itself along the whole platform to gaze upon the proud
stream, peacefully and obediently flowing under the yoke which had been
imposed upon it. All the toil they had undergone was forgotten in the
delightful spectacle, and every man who had had a hand in it, however
insignificant he might be, assumed to himself a portion of the honor
which the successful execution of so gigantic an enterprise conferred on
its illustrious projector. On the other hand, nothing could equal the
consternation which seized the citizens of Antwerp when intelligence was
brought them that the Scheldt was now actually closed, and all access
from Zealand cut off. To increase their dismay they learned the fall of
Brussels also, which had at last been compelled by famine to capitulate.
An attempt made by the Count of Hohenlohe about the same time on
Herzogenbusch, with a view to recapture the town, or at least form a
diversion, was equally unsuccessful; and thus the unfortunate city lost
all hope of assistance, both by sea and land.

These evil tidings were brought them by some fugitives who had succeeded
in passing the Spanish videttes, and had made their way into the town;
and a spy, whom the burgomaster had sent out to reconnoitre the enemy's
works, increased the general alarm by his report. He had been seized
and carried before the Prince of Parma, who commanded him to be
conducted over all the works, and all the defences of the bridge to be
pointed out to him. After this had been done he was again brought
before the general, who dismissed him with these words: "Go," said he,
"and report what you have seen to those who sent you. And tell them,
too, that it is my firm resolve to bury myself under the ruins of this
bridge or by means of it to pass into your town."

But the certainty of danger now at last awakened the zeal of the
confederates, and it was no fault of theirs if the former half of the
prince's vow was not fulfilled. The latter had long viewed with
apprehension the preparations which were making in Zealand for the
relief of the town. He saw clearly that it was from this quarter that
he had to fear the most dangerous blow, and that with all his works he
could not make head against the combined fleets of Zealand and Antwerp
if they were to fall upon him at the same time and at the proper moment.
For a while the delays of the admiral of Zealand, which he had labored
by all the means in his power to prolong, had been his security, but now
the urgent necessity accelerated the expedition, and without waiting for
the admiral the states at Middleburg despatched the Count Justin of
Nassau, with as many ships as they could muster, to the assistance of
the besieged. This fleet took up a position before Liefkenshoek, which
was in possession of the Spaniards, and, supported by a few vessels from
the opposite fort of Lillo, cannonaded it with such success that the
walls were in a short time demolished, and the place carried by storm.
The Walloons who formed the garrison did not display the firmness which
might have been expected from soldiers of the Duke of Parma; they
shamefully surrendered the fort to the enemy, who in a short time were
in possession of the whole island of Doel, with all the redoubts
situated upon it. The loss of these places, which were, however, soon
retaken, incensed the Duke of Parma so much that he tried the officers
by court-martial, and caused the most culpable among them to be
beheaded. Meanwhile this important conquest opened to the Zealanders a
free passage as far as the bridge, and after concerting with the people
of Antwerp the time was fixed for a combined attack on this work. It
was arranged that, while the bridge of boats was blown up by machines
already prepared in Antwerp, the Zealand fleet, with a sufficient supply
of provisions, should be in the vicinity, ready to sail to the town
through the opening.

While the Duke of Parma was engaged in constructing his bridge an
engineer within the walls was already preparing the materials for its
destruction. Frederick Gianibelli was the name of the man whom fate had
destined to be the Archimedes of Antwerp, and to exhaust in its defence
the same ingenuity with the same want of success. He was born in
Mantua, and had formerly visited Madrid for the purpose, it was said,
of offering his services to King Philip in the Belgian war. But wearied
with waiting the offended engineer left the court with the intention of
making the King of Spain sensibly feel the value of talents which he had
so little known how to appreciate. He next sought the service of Queen
Elizabeth of England, the declared enemy of Spain, who, after witnessing
a few specimens of his skill, sent him to Antwerp. He took up his
residence in that town, and in the present extremity devoted to its
defence his knowledge, his energy, and his zeal.

As soon as this artist perceived that the project of erecting the bridge
was seriously intended, and that the work was fast approaching to
completion, he applied to the magistracy for three large vessels, from a
hundred and fifty to five hundred tons, in which he proposed to place
mines. He also demanded sixty boats, which, fastened together with
cables and chains, furnished with projecting grappling-irons, and put in
motion with the ebbing of the tide, were intended to second the
operation of the mine-ships by being directed in a wedgelike form
against the bridge. But he had to deal with men who were quite
incapable of comprehending an idea out of the common way, and even where
the salvation of their country was at stake could not forget the
calculating habits of trade.

His scheme was rejected as too expensive, and with difficulty he at last
obtained the grant of two smaller vessels, from seventy to eighty tons,
with a number of flat-bottomed boats. With these two vessels, one of
which he called the "Fortune" and the other the "Hope," he proceeded in
the following manner: In the hold of each he built a hollow chamber of
freestone, five feet broad, three and a half high, and forty long. This
magazine he filled with sixty hundredweight of the finest priming powder
of his own compounding, and covered it with as heavy a weight of large
slabs and millstones as the vessels could carry. Over these he further
added a roof of similar stones, which ran up to a point and projected
six feet above the ship's side. The deck itself was crammed with iron
chains and hooks, knives, nails, and other destructive missiles; the
remaining space, which was not occupied by the magazine, was likewise
filled up with planks. Several small apertures were left in the chamber
for the matches which were to set fire to the mine. For greater
certainty he had also contrived a piece of mechanism which, after the
lapse of a given time, would strike out sparks, and even if the matches
failed would set the ship on fire. To delude the enemy into a belief
that these machines were only intended to set the bridge on fire, a
composition of brimstone and pitch was placed in the top, which could
burn a whole hour. And still further to divert the enemy's attention
from the proper seat of danger, he also prepared thirty-two flatbottomed
boats, upon which there were only fireworks burning, and whose sole
object was to deceive the enemy. These fire-ships were to be sent down
upon the bridge in four separate squadrons, at intervals of half an
hour, and keep the enemy incessantly engaged for two whole hours, so
that, tired of firing and wearied by vain expectation, they might at
last relax their vigilance before the real fire-ships came. In addition
to all this he also despatched a few vessels in which powder was
concealed in order to blow up the floating work before the bridge, and
to clear a passage for the two principal ships. At the same time he
hoped by this preliminary attack to engage the enemy's attention, to
draw them out, and expose them to the full deadly effect of the volcano.

The night between the 4th and 5th of April was fixed for the execution
of this great undertaking. An obscure rumor of it had already diffused
itself through the Spanish camp, and particularly from the circumstance
of many divers from Antwerp having been detected endeavoring to cut the
cables of the vessels. They were prepared, therefore, for a serious
attack; they only mistook the real nature of it, and counted on having
to fight rather with man than the elements. In this expectation the
duke caused the guards along the whole bank to be doubled, and drew up
the chief part of his troops in the vicinity of the bridge, where he was
present in person; thus meeting the danger while endeavoring to avoid
it.

No sooner was it dark than three burning vessels were seen to float down
from the city towards the bridge, then three more, and directly after
the same number. They beat to arms throughout the Spanish camp, and the
whole length of the bridge was crowded with soldiers. Meantime the
number of the fire-ships increased, and they came in regular order down
the stream, sometimes two and sometimes three abreast, being at first
steered by sailors on board them. The admiral of the Antwerp fleet,
Jacob Jacobson (whether designedly or through carelessness is not
known), had committed the error of sending off the four squadrons of
fire-ships too quickly one after another, and caused the two large
mine-ships also to follow them too soon, and thus disturbed the intended
order of attack.

The array of vessels kept approaching, and the darkness of night still
further heightened the extraordinary spectacle. As far as the eye could
follow the course of the stream all was fire; the fire-ships burning as
brilliantly as if they were themselves in the flames; the surface of the
water glittered with light; the dykes and the batteries along the shore,
the flags, arms, and accoutrements of the soldiers who lined the rivers
as well as the bridges were clearly distinguishable in the glare. With
a mingled sensation of awe and pleasure the soldiers watched the unusual
sight, which rather resembled a fete than a hostile preparation, but
from the very strangeness of the contrast filled the mind with a
mysterious awe. When the burning fleet had come within two thousand
paces of the bridge those who had the charge of it lighted the matches,
impelled the two mine-vessels into the middle of the stream, and leaving
the others to the guidance of the current of the waves, they hastily
made their escape in boats which had been kept in readiness.

Their course, however, was irregular, and destitute of steersmen they
arrived singly and separately at the floating works, where they
continued hanging or were dashed off sidewise on the shore. The
foremost powder-ships, which were intended to set fire to the floating
works, were cast, by the force of a squall which arose at that instant,
on the Flemish coast. One of the two, the "Fortune," grounded in its
passage before it reached the bridge, and killed by its explosion some
Spanish soldiers who were at work in a neighboring battery. The other
and larger fire-ship, called the "Hope," narrowly escaped a similar
fate. The current drove her against the floating defences towards the
Flemish bank, where it remained hanging, and had it taken fire at that
moment the greatest part of its effect would have been lost. Deceived
by the flames which this machine, like the other vessels, emitted, the
Spaniards took it for a common fire-ship, intended to burn the bridge of
boats. And as they had seen them extinguished one after the other
without further effect all fears were dispelled, and the Spaniards began
to ridicule the preparations of the enemy, which had been ushered in
with so much display and now had so absurd an end. Some of the boldest
threw themselves into the stream in order to get a close view of the
fire-ship and extinguish it, when by its weight it suddenly broke
through, burst the floating work which had detained it, and drove with
terrible force on the bridge of boats. All was now in commotion on the
bridge, and the prince called to the sailors to keep the vessel off with
poles, and to extinguish the flames before they caught the timbers.

At this critical moment he was standing at the farthest end of the left
pier, where it formed a bastion in the water and joined the bridge of
boats. By his side stood the Margrave of Rysburg, general of cavalry
and governor of the province of Artois, who had formerly-served the
states, but from a protector of the republic had become its worst enemy;
the Baron of Billy, governor of Friesland and commander of the German
regiments; the Generals Cajetan and Guasto, with several of the
principal officers; all forgetful of their own danger and entirely
occupied with averting the general calamity. At this moment a Spanish
ensign approached the Prince of Parma and conjured him to remove from a
place where his life was in manifest and imminent peril. No attention
being paid to his entreaty he repeated it still more urgently, and at
last fell at his feet and implored him in this one instance to take
advice from his servant. While he said this he had laid hold of the
duke's coat as though he wished forcibly to draw him away from the spot,
and the latter, surprised rather at the man's boldness than persuaded by
his arguments, retired at last to the shore, attended by Cajetan and
Guasto. He had scarcely time to reach the fort St. Maria at the end of
the bridge when an explosion took place behind him, just as if the earth
had burst or the vault of heaven given way. The duke and his whole army
fell to the ground as dead, and several minutes elapsed before they
recovered their consciousness.

But then what a sight presented itself! The waters of the Scheldt had
been divided to its lowest depth, and driven with a surge which rose
like a wall above the dam that confined it, so that all the
fortifications on the banks were several feet under water. The earth
shook for three miles round. Nearly the whole left pier, on which the
fire-ship had been driven, with a part of the bridge of boats, had been
burst and shattered to atoms, with all that was upon it; spars, cannon,
and men blown into the air. Even the enormous blocks of stone which had
covered the mine had, by the force of the explosion, been hurled into
the neighboring fields, so that many of them were afterwards dug out of
the ground at a distance of a thousand paces from the bridge. Six
vessels were buried, several had gone to pieces. But still more
terrible was the carnage which the murderous machine had dealt amongst
the soldiers. Five hundred, according to other reports even eight
hundred, were sacrificed to its fury, without reckoning those who
escaped with mutilated or injured bodies. The most opposite kinds of
death were combined in this frightful moment. Some were consumed by the
flames of the explosion, others scalded to death by the boiling water of
the river, others stifled by the poisonous vapor of the brimstone; some
were drowned in the stream, some buried under the hail of falling masses
of rock, many cut to pieces by the knives and hooks, or shattered by the
balls which were poured from the bowels of the machine. Some were found
lifeless without any visible injury, having in all probability been
killed by the mere concussion of the air. The spectacle which presented
itself directly after the firing of the mine was fearful. Men were seen
wedged between the palisades of the bridge, or struggling to release
themselves from beneath ponderous masses of rock, or hanging in the
rigging of the ships; and from all places and quarters the most
heartrending cries for help arose, but as each was absorbed in his own
safety these could only be answered by helpless wailings.

Many had escaped in the most wonderful manner. An officer named Tucci
was carried by the whirlwind like a feather high into the air, where he
was for a moment suspended, and then dropped into the river, where he
saved himself by swimming. Another was taken up by the force of the
blast from the Flanders shore and deposited on that of Brabant,
incurring merely a slight contusion on the shoulder; he felt, as he
afterwards said, during this rapid aerial transit, just as if he had
been fired out of a cannon. The Prince of Parma himself had never been
so near death as at that moment, when half a minute saved his life. He
had scarcely set foot in the fort of St. Maria when he was lifted off
his feet as if by a hurricane, and a beam which struck him on the head
and shoulders stretched him senseless on the earth. For a long time he
was believed to be actually killed, many remembering to have seen him on
the bridge only a few minutes before the fatal explosion. He was found
at last between his attendants, Cajetan and Guasto, raising himself up
with his hand on his sword; and the intelligence stirred the spirits of
the whole army. But vain would be the attempt to depict his feelings
when he surveyed the devastation which a single moment had caused in the
work of so many months. The bridge of boats, upon which all his hopes
rested, was rent asunder; a great part of his army was destroyed;
another portion maimed and rendered ineffective for many days; many of
his best officers were killed; and, as if the present calamity were not
sufficient, he had now to learn the painful intelligence that the
Margrave of Rysburg, whom of all his officers he prized the highest, was
missing. And yet the worst was still to come, for every moment the
fleets of the enemy were to be expected from Antwerp and Lillo, to which
this fearful position of the army would disable him from offering any
effectual resistance. The bridge was entirely destroyed, and nothing
could prevent the fleet from Zealand passing through in full sail; while
the confusion of the troops in this first moment was so great and
general that it would have been impossible to give or obey orders, as
many corps had lost their commanding officers, and many commanders their
corps; and even the places where they had been stationed were no longer
to be recognized amid the general ruin. Add to this that all the
batteries on shore were under water, that several cannon were sunk, that
the matches were wet, and the ammunition damaged. What a moment for the
enemy if they had known how to avail themselves of it!

It will scarcely be believed, however, that this success, which
surpassed all expectation, was lost to Antwerp, simply because nothing
was known of it. St. Aldegonde, indeed, as soon as the explosion of the
mine was heard in the town, had sent out several galleys in the
direction of the bridge, with orders to send up fire-balls and rockets
the moment they had passed it, and then to sail with the intelligence
straight on to Lillo, in order to bring up, without delay, the Zealand
fleet, which had orders to co-operate. At the same time the admiral of
Antwerp was ordered, as soon as the signal was given, to sail out with
his vessels and attack the enemy in their first consternation. But
although a considerable reward was promised to the boatmen sent to
reconnoitre they did not venture near the enemy, but returned without
effecting their purpose, and reported that the bridge of boats was
uninjured, and the fire-ship had had no effect. Even on the following
day also no better measures were taken to learn the true state of the
bridge; and as the fleet at Lillo, in spite of the favorable wind, was
seen to remain inactive, the belief that the fire-ships had accomplished
nothing was confirmed. It did not seem to occur to any one that this
very inactivity of the confederates, which misled the people of Antwerp,
might also keep back the Zealanders at Lille, as in fact it did. So
signal an instance of neglect could only have occurred in a government,
which, without dignity of independence, was guided by the tumultuous
multitude it ought to have governed. The more supine, however, they
were themselves in opposing the enemy, the more violently did their rage
boil against Gianibelli, whom the frantic mob would have torn in pieces
if they could have caught him. For two days the engineer was in the
most imminent danger, until at last, on the third morning, a courier
from Lillo, who had swam under the bridge, brought authentic
intelligence of its having been destroyed, but at the same time
announced that it had been repaired.

This rapid restoration of the bridge was really a miraculous effort of
the Prince of Parma. Scarcely had he recovered from the shock, which
seemed to have overthrown all his plans, when he contrived, with
wonderful presence of mind, to prevent all its evil consequences. The
absence of the enemy's fleet at this decisive moment revived his hopes.
The ruinous state of the bridge appeared to be a secret to them, and
though it was impossible to repair in a few hours the work of so many
months, yet a great point would be gained if it could be done even in
appearance. All his men were immediately set to work to remove the
ruins, to raise the timbers which had been thrown down, to replace those
which were demolished, and to fill up the chasms with ships. The duke
himself did not refuse to share in the toil, and his example was
followed by all his officers. Stimulated by this popular behavior, the
common soldiers exerted themselves to the utmost; the work was carried
on during the whole night under the constant sounding of drums and
trumpets, which were distributed along the bridge to drown the noise of
the work-people. With dawn of day few traces remained of the night's
havoc; and although the bridge was restored only in appearance, it
nevertheless deceived the spy, and consequently no attack was made upon
it. In the meantime the prince contrived to make the repairs solid,
nay, even to introduce some essential alterations in the structure. In
order to guard against similar accidents for the future, a part of the
bridge of boats was made movable, so that in case of necessity it could
be taken away and a passage opened to the fire-ships. His loss of men
was supplied from the garrisons of the adjoining places, and by a German
regiment which arrived very opportunely from Gueldres. He filled up the
vacancies of the officers who were killed, and in doing this he did not
forget the Spanish ensign who had saved his life.

The people of Antwerp, after learning the success of their mine-ship,
now did homage to the inventor with as much extravagance as they had a
short time before mistrusted him, and they encouraged his genius to new
attempts. Gianibelli now actually obtained the number of flat-bottomed
vessels which he had at first demanded in vain, and these he equipped in
such a manner that they struck with irresistible force on the bridge,
and a second time also burst and separated it. But this time, the wind
was contrary to the Zealand fleet, so that they could not put out, and
thus the prince obtained once more the necessary respite to repair the
damage. The Archimedes of Antwerp was not deterred by any of these
disappointments. Anew he fitted out two large vessels which were armed
with iron hooks and similar instruments in order to tear asunder the
bridge. But when the moment came for these vessels to get under weigh
no one was found ready to embark in them. The engineer was therefore
obliged to think of a plan for giving to these machines such a
self-impulse that, without being guided by a steersman, they would keep the
middle of the stream, and not, like the former ones, be driven on the
bank by the wind. One of his workmen, a German, here hit upon a strange
invention, if Strada's description of it is to be credited. He affixed a
sail under the vessel, which was to be acted upon by the water, just as
an ordinary sail is by the wind, and could thus impel the ship with the
whole force of the current. The result proved the correctness of his
calculation; for this vessel, with the position of its sails reversed,
not only kept the centre of the stream, but also ran against the bridge
with such impetuosity that the enemy had not time to open it and was
actually burst asunder. But all these results were of no service to the
town, because the attempts were made at random and were supported by no
adequate force. A new fire-ship, equipped like the former, which had
succeeded so well, and which Gianibelli had filled with four thousand
pounds of the finest powder was not even used; for a new mode of
attempting their deliverance had now occurred to the people of Antwerp.

Terrified by so many futile attempts from endeavoring to clear a
passage for vessels on the river by force, they at last came to the
determination of doing without the stream entirely. They remembered the
example of the town of Leyden, which, when besieged by the Spaniards ten
years before, had saved itself by opportunely inundating the surrounding
country, and it was resolved to imitate this example. Between Lillo and
Stabroek, in the district of Bergen, a wide and somewhat sloping plain
extends as far as Antwerp, being protected by numerous embankments and
counter-embankments against the irruptions of the East Scheldt. Nothing
more was requisite than to break these dams, when the whole plain would
become a sea, navigable by flat-bottomed vessels almost to the very
walls of Antwerp. If this attempt should succeed, the Duke of Parma
might keep the Scheldt guarded with his bridge of boats as long as he
pleased; a new river would be formed, which, in case of necessity, would
be equally serviceable for the time. This was the very plan which the
Prince of Orange had at the commencement of the siege recommended, and
in which he had been strenuously, but unsuccessfully, seconded by St.
Aldegonde, because some of the citizens could not be persuaded to
sacrifice their own fields. In the present emergency they reverted to
this last resource, but circumstances in the meantime had greatly
changed.

The plain in question is intersected by a broad and high dam, which
takes its name from the adjacent Castle of Cowenstein, and extends for
three miles from the village of Stabroek, in Bergen, as far as the
Scheldt, with the great dam of which it unites near Ordam. Beyond this
dam no vessels can proceed, however high the tide, and the sea would be
vainly turned into the fields as long as such an embankment remained in
the way, which would prevent the Zealand vessels from descending into
the plain before Antwerp. The fate of the town would therefore depend
upon the demolition of this Cowenstein dam; but, foreseeing this, the
Prince of Parma had, immediately on commencing the blockade, taken
possession of it, and spared no pains to render it tenable to the last.
At the village of Stabroek, Count Mansfeld was encamped with the
greatest part of his army, and by means of this very Cowenstein dam kept
open the communication with the bridge, the headquarters, and the
Spanish magazines at Calloo. Thus the army formed an uninterrupted line
from Stabroek in Brabant, as far as Bevern in Flanders, intersected
indeed, but not broken by the Scheldt, and which could not be cut off
without a sanguinary conflict. On the dam itself within proper
distances five different batteries had been erected, the command of
which was given to the most valiant officers in the army. Nay, as the
Prince of Parma could not doubt that now the whole fury of the war would
be turned to this point, he entrusted the defence of the bridge to Count
Mansfeld, and resolved to defend this important post himself. The war,
therefore, now assumed a different aspect, and the theatre of it was
entirely changed.

Both above and below Lillo, the Netherlanders had in several places cut
through the dam, which follows the Brabant shore of the Scheldt; and
where a short time before had been green fields, a new element now
presented itself, studded with masts and boats. A Zealand fleet,
commanded by Count Hohenlohe, navigated the inundated fields, and made
repeated movements against the Cowenstein dam, without, however,
attempting a serious attack on it, while another fleet showed itself in
the Scheldt, threatening the two coasts alternately with a landing, and
occasionally the bridge of boats with an attack. For several days this
manoeuvre was practised on the enemy, who, uncertain of the quarter
whence an attack was to be expected, would, it was hoped, be exhausted
by continual watching, and by degrees lulled into security by so many
false alarms. Antwerp had promised Count Hohenlohe to support the
attack on the dam by a flotilla from the town; three beacons on the
principal tower were to be the signal that this was on the way. When,
therefore, on a dark night the expected columns of fire really ascended
above Antwerp, Count Hohenlohe immediately caused five hundred of his
troops to scale the dam between two of the enemy's redoubts, who
surprised part of the Spanish garrison asleep, and cut down the others
who attempted to defend themselves. In a short time they had gained a
firm footing upon the dam, and were just on the point of disembarking
the remainder of their force, two thousand in number, when the Spaniards
in the adjoining redoubts marched out and, favored by the narrowness of
the ground, made a desperate attack on the crowded Zealanders. The guns
from the neighboring batteries opened upon the approaching fleet, and
thus rendered the landing of the remaining troops impossible; and as
there were no signs of co-operation on the part of the city, the
Zealanders were overpowered after a short conflict and again driven down
from the dam. The victorious Spaniards pursued them through the water
as far as their boats, sunk many of the latter, and compelled the rest
to retreat with heavy loss. Count Hohenlohe threw the blame of this
defeat upon the inhabitants of Antwerp, who had deceived him by a false
signal, and it certainly must be attributed to the bad arrangement of
both parties that the attempt failed of better success.

But at last the allies determined to make a systematic assault on the
enemy with their combined force, and to put an end to the siege by a
grand attack as well on the dam as on the bridge. The 16th of May,
1585, was fixed upon for the execution of this design, and both armies
used their utmost endeavors to make this day decisive. The force of the
Hollanders and Zealanders, united to that of Antwerp, exceeded two
hundred ships, to man which they had stripped their towns and citadels,
and with this force they purposed to attack the Cowenstein dam on both
sides. The bridge over the Scheldt was to be assailed with new machines
of Gianibelli's invention, and the Duke of Parma thereby hindered from
assisting the defence of the dam.

Alexander, apprised of the danger which threatened him, spared nothing
on his side to meet it with energy. Immediately after getting
possession of the dam he had caused redoubts to be erected at five
different, places, and had given the command of them to the most
experienced officers of the army. The first of these, which was called
the Cross battery, was erected on the spot where the Cowenstein darn
enters the great embankment of the Scheldt, and makes with the latter
the form of a cross; the Spaniard, Mondragone, was appointed to the
command of this battery. A thousand paces farther on, near the castle
of Cowenstein, was posted the battery of St. James, which was entrusted
to the command of Camillo di Monte. At an equal distance from this lay
the battery of St. George, and at a thousand paces from the latter, the
Pile battery, under the command of Gamboa, so called from the pile-work
on which it rested; at the farthest end of the darn, near Stabroek, was
the fifth redoubt, where Count Mansfeld, with Capizuechi, an Italian,
commanded. All these forts the prince now strengthened with artillery
and men; on both sides of the dam, and along its whole extent, he caused
piles to be driven, as well to render the main embankment firmer, as to
impede the labor of the pioneers, who were to dig through it.

Early on the morning of the 16th of May the enemy's forces were in
motion. With the dusk of dawn there came floating down from Lillo, over
the inundated country, four burning vessels, which so alarmed the guards
upon the dams, who recollected the former terrible explosion, that they
hastily retreated to the next battery. This was exactly what the enemy
desired. In these vessels, which had merely the appearance of
fire-ships, soldiers were concealed, who now suddenly jumped ashore, and
succeeded in mounting the dam at the undefended spot, between the St.
George and Pile batteries. Immediately afterward the whole Zealand
fleet showed itself, consisting of numerous ships-of-war, transports,
and a crowd of smaller craft, which were laden with great sacks of
earth, wool, fascines, gabions, and the like, for throwing up
breastworks wherever necessary, The ships-of-war were furnished with
powerful artillery, and numerously and bravely manned, and a whole army
of pioneers accompanied it in order to dig through the dam as soon as it
should be in their possession.

The Zealanders had scarcely begun on their side to ascend the dam when
the fleet of Antwerp advanced from Osterweel and attacked it on the
other. A high breastwork was hastily thrown up between the two nearest
hostile batteries, so as at once to divide the two garrisons and to
cover the pioneers. The latter, several hundreds in number, now fell to
work with their spades on both sides of the dam, and dug with such
energy that hopes were entertained of soon seeing the two seas united.
But meanwhile the Spaniards also had gained time to hasten to the spot
from the two nearest redoubts, and make a spirited assault, while the
guns from the battery of St. George played incessantly on the enemy's
fleet. A furious battle now raged in the quarter where they were
cutting through the dike and throwing up the breastworks. The
Zealanders had drawn a strong line of troops round the pioneers to keep
the enemy from interrupting their work, and in this confusion of battle,
in the midst of a storm of bullets from the enemy, often up to the
breast in water, among the dead and dying, the pioneers pursued their
work, under the incessant exhortations of the merchants, who impatiently
waited to see the dam opened and their vessels in safety. The
importance of the result, which it might be said depended entirely upon
their spades, appeared to animate even the common laborers with heroic
courage. Solely intent upon their task, they neither saw nor heard the
work of death which was going on around them, and as fast as the
foremost ranks fell those behind them pressed into their places. Their
operations were greatly impeded by the piles which had been driven in,
but still more by the attacks of the Spaniards, who burst with desperate
courage through the thickest of the enemy, stabbed the pioneers in the
pits where they were digging, and filled up again with dead bodies the
cavities which the living had made. At last, however, when most of
their officers were killed or wounded, and the number of the enemy
constantly increasing, while fresh laborers were supplying the place of
those who had been slain, the courage of these valiant troops began to
give way, and they thought it advisable to retreat to their batteries.
Now, therefore, the confederates saw themselves masters of the whole
extent of the dam, from Fort St. George as far as the Pile battery. As,
however, it seemed too long to wait for the thorough demolition of the
dam, they hastily unloaded a Zealand transport, and brought the cargo
over the dam to a vessel of Antwerp, with which Count Hohenlohe sailed
in triumph to that city. The sight of the provisions at once filled the
inhabitants with joy, and as if the victory was already won, they gave
themselves up to the wildest exultation. The bells were rung, the
cannon discharged, and the inhabitants, transported by their unexpected
success, hurried to the Osterweel gate, to await the store-ships which
were supposed to be at hand.

In fact, fortune had never smiled so favorably on the besieged as at
that moment. The enemy, exhausted and dispirited, had thrown themselves
into their batteries, and, far from being able to struggle with the
victors for the post they had conquered, they found themselves rather
besieged in the places where they had taken refuge. Some companies of
Scots, led by their brave colonel, Balfour, attacked the battery of St.
George, which, however, was relieved, but not without severe loss, by
Camillo di Monte, who hastened thither from St. James' battery. The
Pile battery was in a much worse condition, it being hotly cannonaded by
the ships, and threatened every moment to crumble to pieces. Gainboa,
who commanded it, lay wounded, and it was unfortunately deficient in
artillery to keep the enemy at a distance. The breastwork, too, which
the Zealanders had thrown up between this battery and that of St.
George cut off all hope of assistance from the Scheldt. If, therefore,
the Belgians had only taken advantage of this weakness and inactivity of
the enemy to proceed with zeal and perseverance in cutting through the
dam, there is no doubt that a passage might have been made, and thus put
an end to the whole siege. But here also the same want of consistent
energy showed itself which had marked the conduct of the people of
Antwerp during the whole course of the siege. The zeal with which the
work had been commenced cooled in proportion to the success which
attended it. It was soon found too tedious to dig through the dyke; it
seemed far easier to transfer the cargoes from the large store-ships
into smaller ones, and carry these to the town with the flood tide. St.
Aldegonde and Hohenlohe, instead of remaining to animate the industry of
the workmen by their personal presence, left the scene of action at the
decisive moment, in order, by sailing to the town with a corn vessel, to
win encomiums on their wisdom and valor.

While both parties were fighting on the dam with the most obstinate fury
the bridge over the Scheldt had been attacked from Antwerp with new
machines, in order to give employment to the prince in that quarter.
But the sound of the firing soon apprised him of what was going on at
the dyke, and as soon as he saw the bridge clear he hastened to support
the defence of the dyke. Followed by two hundred Spanish pikemen, he
flew to the place of attack, and arrived just in time to prevent the
complete defeat of his troops. He hastily posted some guns which he had
brought with him in the two nearest redoubts, and maintained from thence
a heavy fire upon the enemy's ships. He placed himself at the head of
his men, and, with his sword in one hand and shield in the other, led
them against the enemy. The news of his arrival, which quickly spread
from one end of the dyke to the other, revived the drooping spirits of
his troops, and the conflict recommenced with renewed violence, made
still more murderous by the nature of the ground where it was fought.
Upon the narrow ridge of the dam, which in many places was not more than
nine paces broad, about five thousand combatants were fighting; so
confined was the spot upon which the strength of both armies was
assembled, and which was to decide the whole issue of the siege. With
the Antwerpers the last bulwark of their city was at stake; with the
Spaniards it was to determine the whole success of their undertaking.
Both parties fought with a courage which despair alone could inspire.
From both the extremities of the dam the tide of war rolled itself
towards the centre, where the Zealanders and Antwerpers had the
advantage, and where they had collected their whole strength. The
Italians and Spaniards, inflamed by a noble emulation, pressed on from
Stabroek; and from the Scheldt the Walloons and Spaniards advanced, with
their general at their head. While the former endeavored to relieve the
Pile battery, which was hotly pressed by the enemy, both by sea and
land, the latter threw themselves on the breastwork, between the St.
George and the Pile batteries, with a fury which carried everything
before it. Here the flower of the Belgian troops fought behind a
well-fortified rampart, and the guns of the two fleets covered this
important post. The prince was already pressing forward to attack this
formidable defence with his small army when he received intelligence that
the Italians and Spaniards, under Capizucchi and Aquila, had forced their
way, sword in hand, into the Pile battery, had got possession of it, and
were now likewise advancing from the other side against the enemy's
breastwork. Before this intrenchment, therefore, the whole force of both
armies was now collected, and both sides used their utmost efforts to
carry and to defend this position. The Netherlanders on board the fleet,
loath to remain idle spectators of the conflict, sprang ashore from their
vessels. Alexander attacked the breastwork on one side, Count Mansfeld on
the other; five assaults were made, and five times they were repulsed.
The Netherlanders in this decisive moment surpassed themselves; never in
the whole course of the war had they fought with such determination. But
it was the Scotch and English in particular who baffled the attempts of
the enemy by their valiant resistance. As no one would advance to the
attack in the quarter where the Scotch fought, the duke himself led on
the troops, with a javelin in his hand, and up to his breast in water. At
last, after a protracted struggle, the forces of Count Mansfeld succeeded
with their halberds and pikes in making a breach in the breastwork, and
by raising themselves on one another's shoulders scaled the parapet.
Barthelemy Toralva, a Spanish captain, was the first who showed himself
on the top; and almost at the same instant the Italian, Capizucchi,
appeared upon the edge of it; and thus the contest of valor was decided
with equal glory for both nations. It is worth while to notice here the
manner in which the Prince of Parma, who was made arbiter of this emulous
strife, encouraged this delicate sense of honor among his warriors. He
embraced the Italian, Capizucchi, in presence of the troops, and
acknowledged aloud that it was principally to the courage of this officer
that he owed the capture of the breastwork. He caused the Spanish
captain, Toralva, who was dangerously wounded, to be conveyed to his own
quarters at Stabroek, laid on his own bed, and covered with the cloak
which he himself had worn the day before the battle.

After the capture of the breastwork the victory no longer remained
doubtful. The Dutch and Zealand troops, who had disembarked to come to
close action with the enemy, at once lost their courage when they looked
about them and saw the vessels, which were their last refuge, putting
off from the shore.

For the tide had begun to ebb, and the commanders of the fleet, from
fear of being stranded with their heavy transports, and, in case of an
unfortunate issue to the engagement, becoming the prey of the enemy,
retired from the dam, and made for deep water. No sooner did Alexander
perceive this than he pointed out to his troops the flying vessels, and
encouraged them to finish the action with an enemy who already despaired
of their safety. The Dutch auxiliaries were the first that gave way,
and their example was soon followed by the Zealanders. Hastily leaping
from the dam they endeavored to reach the vessels by wading or swimming;
but from their disorderly flight they impeded one another, and fell in
heaps under the swords of the pursuers. Many perished even in the
boats, as each strove to get on board before the other, and several
vessels sank under the weight of the numbers who rushed into them. The
Antwerpers, who fought for their liberty, their hearths, their faith,
were the last who retreated, but this very circumstance augmented their
disaster. Many of their vessels were outstripped by the ebb-tide, and
grounded within reach of the enemy's cannon, and were consequently
destroyed with all on board. Crowds of fugitives endeavored by swimming
to gain the other transports, which had got into deep water; but such
was the rage and boldness of the Spaniards that they swam after them
with their swords between their teeth, and dragged many even from the
ships. The victory of the king's troops was complete but bloody; for of
the Spaniards about eight hundred, of the Netherlanders some thousands
(without reckoning those who were drowned), were left on the field, and
on both sides many of the principal nobility perished. More than thirty
vessels, with a large supply of provisions for Antwerp, fell into the
hands of the victors, with one hundred and fifty cannon and other
military stores. The dam, the possession of which had been so dearly
maintained, was pierced in thirteen different places, and the bodies of
those who had cut through it were now used to stop up the openings.

The following day a transport of immense size and singular construction
fell into the hands of the royalists. It formed a floating castle, and
had been destined for the attack on the Cowenstein dam. The people of
Antwerp had built it at an immense expense at the very time when the
engineer Gianibelli's useful proposals had been rejected on account of
the cost they entailed, and this ridiculous monster was called by the
proud title of "End of the War," which appellation was afterwards
changed for the more appropriate sobriquet of "Money lost!" When this
vessel was launched it turned out, as every sensible person had
foretold, that on account of its unwieldly size it was utterly
impossible to steer it, and it could hardly be floated by the highest
tide. With great difficulty it was worked as far as Ordain, where,
deserted by the tide, it went aground, and fell a prey to the enemy.

The attack upon the Cowenstein dam was the last attempt which was made
to relieve Antwerp. From this time the courage of the besieged sank,
and the magistracy of the town vainly labored to inspirit with distant
hopes the lower orders, on whom the present distress weighed heaviest.
Hitherto the price of bread had been kept down to a tolerable rate,
although the quality of it continued to deteriorate; by degrees,
however, provisions became so scarce that a famine was evidently near at
hand. Still hopes were entertained of being able to hold out, at least
until the corn between the town and the farthest batteries, which was
already in full ear, could be reaped; but before that could be done the
enemy had carried the last outwork, and had appropriated the whole
harvest to their use. At last the neighboring and confederate town of
Malines fell into the enemy's hands, and with its fall vanished the only
remaining hope of getting supplies from Brabant. As there was,
therefore, no longer any means of increasing the stock of provisions
nothing was left but to diminish the consumers. All useless persons,
all strangers, nay even the women and children were to be sent away out
of the town, but this proposal was too revolting to humanity to be
carried into execution. Another plan, that of expelling the Catholic
inhabitants, exasperated them so much that it had almost ended in open
mutiny. And thus St. Aldegonde at last saw himself compelled to yield
to the riotous clamors of the populace, and on the 17th of August, 1585,
to make overtures to the Duke of Parma for the surrender of the town.






           THE GHOST-SEER; OR, APPARITIONIST.

                 AND

              SPORT OF DESTINY




FROM THE PAPERS OF COUNT O-------

I am about to relate an adventure which to many will appear incredible,
but of which I was in great part an eye-witness. The few who are
acquainted with a certain political event will, if indeed these pages
should happen to find them alive, receive a welcome solution thereof.
And, even to the rest of my readers, it will be, perhaps, important as
a contribution to the history of the deception and aberrations of the
human intellect. The boldness of the schemes which malice is able to
contemplate and to carry out must excite astonishment, as must also the
means of which it can avail itself to accomplish its aims. Clear,
unvarnished truth shall guide my pen; for, when these pages come before
the public, I shall be no more, and shall therefore never learn their
fate.

On my return to Courland in the year 17--, about the time of the
Carnival, I visited the Prince of ------- at Venice. We had been
acquainted in the ------ service, and we here renewed an intimacy which,
by the restoration of peace, had been interrupted. As I wished to see
the curiosities of this city, and as the prince was waiting only for the
arrival of remittances to return to his native country, he easily
prevailed on me to tarry till his departure. We agreed not to separate
during the time of our residence at Venice, and the prince was kind
enough to accommodate me at his lodgings at the Moor Hotel.

As the prince wished to enjoy himself, and his small revenues did not
permit him to maintain the dignity of his rank, he lived at Venice in
the strictest incognito. Two noblemen, in whom he had entire
confidence, and a few faithful servants, composed all his retinue. He
shunned expenditure, more however from inclination than economy. He
avoided all kinds of dissipation, and up to the age of thirty-five years
had resisted the numerous allurements of this voluptuous city. To the
charms of the fair sex he was wholly indifferent. A settled gravity and
an enthusiastic melancholy were the prominent features of his character.
His affections were tranquil, but obstinate to excess. He formed his
attachments with caution and timidity, but when once formed they were
cordial and permanent. In the midst of a tumultuous crowd he walked in
solitude. Wrapped in his own visionary ideas, he was often a stranger
to the world about him; and, sensible of his own deficiency in the
knowledge of mankind, he scarcely ever ventured an opinion of his own,
and was apt to pay an unwarrantable deference to the judgment of others.
Though far from being weak, no man was more liable to be governed; but,
when conviction had once entered his mind, he became firm and decisive;
equally courageous to combat an acknowledged prejudice or to die for a
new one.

As he was the third prince of his house, he had no likely prospect of
succeeding to the sovereignty. His ambition had never been awakened;
his passions had taken another direction. Contented to find himself
independent of the will of others, he never enforced his own as a law;
his utmost wishes did not soar beyond the peaceful quietude of a private
life, free from care. He read much, but without discrimination. As his
education had been neglected, and, as he had early entered the career of
arms, his understanding had never been fully matured. Hence the
knowledge he afterwards acquired served but to increase the chaos
of his ideas, because it was built on an unstable foundation.

He was a Protestant, as all his family had been, by birth, but not by
investigation, which he had never attempted, although at one period of
his life he had been an enthusiast in its cause. He had never, so far
as came to my knowledge, been a freemason.

One evening we were, as usual, walking by ourselves, well masked in the
square of St. Mark. It was growing late, and the crowd was dispersing,
when the prince observed a mask which followed us everywhere. This mask
was an Armenian, and walked alone. We quickened our steps, and
endeavored to baffle him by repeatedly altering our course. It was in
vain, the mask was always close behind us. "You have had no intrigue
here, I hope," said the prince at last, "the husbands of Venice are
dangerous." "I do not know a single lady in the place," was my answer.
"Let us sit down here, and speak German," said he; "I fancy we are
mistaken for some other persons." We sat down upon a stone bench, and
expected the mask would have passed by. He came directly up to us, and
took his seat by the side of the prince. The latter took out his watch,
and, rising at the same time, addressed me thus in a loud voice in
French, "It is past nine. Come, we forget that we are waited for at the
Louvre." This speech he only invented in order to deceive the mask as
to our route. "Nine!" repeated the latter in the same language, in a
slow and expressive voice, "Congratulate yourself, my prince" (calling
him by his real name); "he died at nine." In saying this, he rose and
went away.

We looked at each other in amazement. "Who is dead?" said the prince
at length, after a long silence. "Let us follow him," replied I, "and
demand an explanation." We searched every corner of the place; the mask
was nowhere to be found. We returned to our hotel disappointed. The
prince spoke not a word to me the whole way; he walked apart by himself,
and appeared to be greatly agitated, which he afterwards confessed to me
was the case. Having reached home, he began at length to speak: "Is it
not laughable," said he, "that a madman should have the power thus to
disturb a man's tranquillity by two or three words?" We wished each
other a goodnight; and, as soon as I was in my own apartment, I noted
down in my pocket-book the day and the hour when this adventure
happened. It was on a Thursday.

The next evening the prince said to me, "Suppose we go to the square of
St. Mark, and seek for our mysterious Armenian. I long to see this
comedy unravelled." I consented. We walked in the square till eleven.
The Armenian was nowhere to be seen. We repeated our walk the four
following evenings, and each time with the same bad success.

On the sixth evening, as we went out of the hotel, it occurred to me,
whether designedly or otherwise I cannot recollect, to tell the servants
where we might be found in case we should be inquired for. The prince
remarked my precaution, and approved of it with a smile. We found the
square of St. Mark very much crowded. Scarcely had we advanced thirty
steps when I perceived the Armenian, who was pressing rapidly through
the crowd, and seemed to be in search of some one. We were just
approaching him, when Baron F-----, one of the prince's retinue, came up
to us quite breathless, and delivered to the prince a letter. "It is
sealed with black," said he, "and we supposed from this that it might
contain matters of importance." I was struck as with a thunderbolt.
The prince went near a torch, and began to read. "My cousin is dead!"
exclaimed he. "When?" inquired I anxiously, interrupting him. He
looked again into the letter. "Last Thursday night at nine."

We had not recovered from our surprise when the Armenian stood before
us. "You are known here, my prince!" said he. "Hasten to your hotel.
You will find there the deputies from the Senate. Do not hesitate to
accept the honor they intend to offer you. Baron I--forgot to tell you
that your remittances are arrived." He disappeared among the crowd.

We hastened to our hotel, and found everything as the Armenian had told
us. Three noblemen of the republic were waiting to pay their respects
to the prince, and to escort him in state to the Assembly, where the
first nobility of the city were ready to receive him. He had hardly
time enough to give me a hint to sit up for him till his return.

About eleven o'clock at night he returned. On entering the room he
appeared grave and thoughtful. Having dismissed the servants, he took
me by the hand, and said, in the words of Hamlet, "Count -----

       "'There are more things in heav'n and earth,
        Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

"Gracious prince!" replied I, "you seem to forget that you are retiring
to your pillow greatly enriched in prospect." The deceased was the
hereditary prince.

"Do not remind me of it," said the prince; "for should I even have
acquired a crown I am now too much engaged to occupy myself with such a
trifle. If that Armenian has not merely guessed by chance"

"How can that be, my prince?" interrupted I.

"Then will I resign to you all my hopes of royalty in exchange for a
monk's cowl."

I have mentioned this purposely to show how far every ambitious idea was
then distant from his thoughts.

The following evening we went earlier than usual to the square of St.
Mark. A sudden shower of rain obliged us to take shelter in a
coffee-house, where we found a party engaged at cards. The prince took his
place behind the chair of a Spaniard to observe the game. I went into
an adjacent chamber to read the newspapers. A short time afterwards I
heard a noise in the card-room. Previously to the entrance of the
prince the Spaniard had been constantly losing, but since then he had
won upon every card. The fortune of the game was reversed in a striking
manner, and the bank was in danger of being challenged by the pointeur,
whom this lucky change of fortune had rendered more adventurous. A
Venetian, who kept the bank, told the prince in a very rude manner that
his presence interrupted the fortune of the game, and desired him to
quit the table. The latter looked coldly at him, remained in his place,
and preserved the same countenance, when the Venetian repeated his
insulting demand in French. He thought the prince understood neither
French nor Italian; and, addressing himself with a contemptuous laugh to
the company, said "Pray, gentlemen, tell me how I must make myself
understood to this fool." At the same time he rose and prepared to
seize the prince by the arm. His patience forsook the latter; he
grasped the Venetian with a strong hand, and threw him violently on the
ground. The company rose up in confusion. Hearing the noise, I hastily
entered the room, and unguardedly called the prince by his name. "Take
care," said I, imprudently; "we are in Venice." The name of the prince
caused a general silence, which ended in a whispering which appeared to
me to have a dangerous tendency. All the Italians present divided into
parties, and kept aloof. One after the other left the room, so that we
soon found ourselves alone with the Spaniard and a few Frenchmen. "You
are lost, prince," said they, "if you do not leave the city immediately.
The Venetian whom you have handled so roughly is rich enough to hire a
bravo. It costs him but fifty zechins to be revenged by your death."
The Spaniard offered, for the security of the prince, to go for the
guards, and even to accompany us home himself. The Frenchmen proposed
to do the same. We were still deliberating what to do when the doors
suddenly opened, and some officers of the Inquisition entered the room.
They produced an order of government, which charged us both to follow
them immediately. They conducted us under a strong escort to the canal,
where a gondola was waiting for us, in which we were ordered to embark.
We were blindfolded before we landed. They led us up a large stone
staircase, and through a long, winding passage, over vaults, as I judged
from the echoes that resounded under our feet. At length we came to
another staircase, and, having descended a flight of steps, we entered a
hall, where the bandage was removed from our eyes. We found ourselves
in a circle of venerable old men, all dressed in black; the hall was
hung round with black and dimly lighted. A dead silence reigned in the
assembly, which inspired us with a feeling of awe. One of the old men,
who appeared to be the principal Inquisitor, approached the prince with
a solemn countenance, and said, pointing to the Venetian, who was led
forward:

"Do you recognize this man as the same who offended you at the
coffee-house?"

"I do," answered the prince.

Then addressing the prisoner: "Is this the same person whom you meant to
have assassinated to-night?"

The prisoner replied, "Yes."

In the same instant the circle opened, and we saw with horror the head
of the Venetian severed from his body.

"Are you content with this satisfaction?" said the Inquisitor. The
prince had fainted in the arms of his attendants. "Go," added the
Inquisitor, turning to me, with a terrible voice, "Go; and in future
judge less hastily of the administration of justice in Venice."

Who the unknown friend was who had thus saved us from inevitable death,
by interposing in our behalf the active arm of justice, we could not
conjecture. Filled with terror we reached our hotel. It was past
midnight. The chamberlain, Z-------, was waiting anxiously for us at
the door.

"How fortunate it was that you sent us a message," said he to the
prince, as he lighted us up the staircase. "The news which Baron F-----
soon after brought us respecting you from the square of St. Mark would
otherwise have given us the greatest uneasiness."

"I sent you a message!" said the prince. "When? I know nothing of it."

"This evening, after eight, you sent us word that we must not be alarmed
if you should come home later to-night than usual."

The prince looked at me. "Perhaps you have taken this precaution
without mentioning it to me."

I knew nothing of it.

"It must be so, however," replied the chamberlain, "since here is your
repeating-watch, which you sent me as a mark of authenticity."

The prince put his hand to his watch-pocket. It was empty, and he
recognized the watch which the chamberlain held as his own.

"Who brought it?" said he, in amazement.

"An unknown mask, in an Armenian dress, who disappeared immediately."

We stood looking at each other. "What do you think of this?" said the
prince at last, after a long silence. "I have a secret guardian here in
Venice."

The frightful transaction of this night threw the prince into a fever,
which confined him to his room for a week. During this time our hotel
was crowded with Venetians and strangers, who visited the prince from a
deference to his newly-discovered rank. They vied with each other in
offers of service, and it was not a little entertaining to observe that
the last visitor seldom failed to hint some suspicion derogatory to the
character of the preceding one. Billets-doux and nostrums poured in
upon us from all quarters. Every one endeavored to recommend himself in
his own way. Our adventure with the Inquisition was no more mentioned.
The court of --------, wishing the prince to delay his departure from
Venice for some time, orders were sent to several bankers to pay him
considerable sums of money. He was thus, against his will, compelled to
protract his residence in Italy; and at his request I also resolved to
postpone my departure for some time longer.

As soon as the prince had recovered strength enough to quit his chamber
he was advised by his physician to take an airing in a gondola upon the
Brenta, for the benefit of the air, to which, as the weather was serene,
he readily consented. Just as the prince was about to step into the
boat he missed the key of a little chest in which some very valuable
papers were enclosed.. We immediately turned back to search for it. He
very distinctly remembered that he had locked the chest the day before,
and he had never left the room in the interval. As our endeavors to
find it proved ineffectual, we were obliged to relinquish the search in
order to avoid being too late. The prince, whose soul was above
suspicion, gave up the key as lost, and desired that it might not be
mentioned any more.

Our little voyage was exceedingly delightful. A picturesque country,
which at every winding of the river seemed to increase in richness and
beauty; the serenity of the sky, which formed a May day in the middle of
February; the charming gardens and elegant countryseats which adorned
the banks of the Brenta; the maestic city of Venice behind us, with its
lofty spires, and a forest of masts, rising as it were out of the waves;
all this afforded us one of the most splendid prospects in the world.
We wholly abandoned ourselves to the enchantment of Nature's luxuriant
scenery; our minds shared the hilarity of the day; even the prince
himself lost his wonted gravity, and vied with us in merry jests
and diversions. On landing about two Italian miles from the city we
heard the sound of sprightly music; it came from a small village at a
little distance from the Brenta, where there was at that time a fair.
The place was crowded with company of every description. A troop of
young girls and boys, dressed in theatrical habits, welcomed us in a
pantomimical dance. The invention was novel; animation and grace
attended their every movement. Before the dance was quite concluded
the principal actress, who represented a queen, stopped suddenly,
as if arrested by an invisible arm. Herself and those around her were
motionless. The music ceased. The assembly was silent. Not a breath
was to be heard, and the queen stood with her eyes fixed on the ground
in deep abstraction. On a sudden she started from her reverie with the
fury of one inspired, and looked wildly around her. "A king is among
us," she exclaimed, taking her crown from her head, and laying it at the
feet of the prince. Every one present cast their eyes upon him, and
doubted for some time whether there was any meaning in this farce; so
much were they deceived by the impressive seriousness of the actress.
This silence was at length broken by a general clapping of hands, as a
mark of approbation. I looked at the prince. I noticed that he
appeared not a little disconcerted, and endeavored to escape the
inquisitive glances of the spectators. He threw money to the players,
and hastened to extricate himself from the crowd.

We had advanced but a few steps when a venerable barefooted friar,
pressing through the crowd, placed himself in the prince's path. "My
lord," said he, "give the holy Virgin part of your gold. You will want
her prayers." He uttered these words in a tone of voice which startled
us extremely, and then disappeared in the throng.

In the meantime our company had increased. An English lord, whom the
prince had seen before at Nice, some merchants of Leghorn, a German
prebendary, a French abbe with some ladies, and a Russian officer,
attached themselves to our party. The physiognomy of the latter had
something so uncommon as to attract our particular attention. Never in
my life did I see such various features and so little expression; so
much attractive benevolence and such forbidding coldness in the same
face. Each passion seemed by turns to have exercised its ravages on it,
and to have successively abandoned it. Nothing remained but the calm,
piercing look of a person deeply skilled in the knowledge of mankind;
but it was a look that abashed every one on whom it was directed. This
extraordinary man followed us at a distance, and seemed apparently to
take but little interest in what was passing.

We came to a booth where there was a lottery. The ladies bought shares.
We followed their example, and the prince himself purchased a ticket.
He won a snuffbox. As he opened it I saw him turn pale and start back.
It contained his lost key.

"How is this?" said he to me, as we were left for a moment alone.
"A superior power attends me, omniscience surrounds me. An invisible
being, whom I cannot escape, watches over my steps. I must seek for the
Armenian, and obtain an explanation from him."

The sun was setting when we arrived at the pleasurehouse, where a supper
had been prepared for us. The prince's name had augmented our company
to sixteen. Besides the above-mentioned persons there was a virtuoso
from Rome, several Swiss gentlemen, and an adventurer from Palermo in
regimentals, who gave himself out for a captain. We resolved to spend
the evening where we were, and to return home by torchlight. The
conversation at table was lively. The prince could not forbear relating
his adventure of the key, which excited general astonishment. A warm
dispute on the subject presently took place. Most of the company
positively maintained that the pretended occult sciences were nothing
better than juggling tricks. The French abbe, who had drank rather too
much wine, challenged the whole tribe of ghosts, the English lord
uttered blasphemies, and the musician made a cross to exorcise the
devil. Some few of the company, amongst whom was the prince, contended
that opinions respecting such matters ought to be kept to oneself. In
the meantime the Russian officer discoursed with the ladies, and did not
seem to pay attention to any part of conversation. In the heat of the
dispute no one observed that the Sicilian had left the room. In less
than half an hour he returned wrapped in a cloak, and placed himself
behind the chair of the Frenchman. "A few moments ago," said he, "you
had the temerity to challenge the whole tribe of ghosts. Would you wish
to make a trial with one of them?"

"I will," answered the abbe, "if you will take upon yourself to
introduce one."

"That I am ready to do," replied the Sicilian, turning to us, "as soon
as these ladies and gentlemen have left us."

"Why only then?" exclaimed the Englishman. "A courageous ghost will
surely not be afraid of a cheerful company."

"I would not answer for the consequences," said the Sicilian.

"For heaven's sake, no!" cried the ladies, starting affrighted from
their chairs.

"Call your ghost," said the abbe, in a tone of defiance, "but warn him
beforehand that there are sharp-pointed weapons here." At the same time
he asked one of the company for a sword.

"If you preserve the same intention in his presence," answered the
Sicilian, coolly, "you may then act as you please." He then turned
towards the prince: "Your highness," said he, "asserts that your key has
been in the hands of a stranger; can you conjecture in whose?"

"No"

"Have you no suspicion?"

"It certainly occurred to me that"--

"Should you know the person if you saw him?"

"Undoubtedly."

The Sicilian, throwing back his cloak, took out a looking-glass and held
it before the prince. "Is this the man?"

The prince drew back with affright.

"Whom have you seen?" I inquired.

"The Armenian."

The Sicilian concealed his looking-glass under his cloak.

"Is it the person whom you thought of?" demanded the whole company.

"The same."

A sudden change manifested itself on every face; no more laughter was to
be heard. All eyes were fixed with curiosity on the Sicilian.

"Monsieur l'Abbe! The matter grows serious," said the Englishman.
"I advise you to think of beating a retreat."

"The fellow is in league with the devil," exclaimed the Frenchman, and
rushed out of the house. The ladies ran shrieking from the room. The
virtuoso followed them. The German prebendary was snoring in a chair.
The Russian officer continued sitting in his place as before, perfectly
indifferent to what was passing.

"Perhaps your attention was only to raise a laugh at the expense of that
boaster," said the prince, after they were gone, "or would you indeed
fulfil your promise to us?"

"It is true," replied the Sicilian; "I was but jesting with the abbe.
I took him at his word, because I knew very well that the coward would
not suffer me to proceed to extremities. The matter itself is, however,
too serious to serve merely as a jest."

"You grant, then, that it is in your power?"

The sorcerer maintained a long silence, and kept his look fixed steadily
on the prince, as if to examine him.

"It is!" answered he at last.

The prince's curiosity was now raised to the highest pitch. A fondness
for the marvellous had ever been his prevailing weakness. His improved
understanding and a proper course of reading had for some time
dissipated every idea of this kind; but the appearance of the Armenian
had revived them. He stepped aside with the Sicilian, and I heard them
in very earnest conversation.

"You see in me," said the prince, "a man who burns with impatience to be
convinced on this momentous subject. I would embrace as a benefactor,
I would cherish as my best friend him who could dissipate my doubts
and remove the veil from my eyes. Would you render me this important
service?"

"What is your request!" inquired the Sicilian, hesitating.

"For the present I only beg some proof of your art. Let me see an
apparition."

"To what will this lead?"

"After a more intimate acquaintance with me you may be able to judge
whether I deserve further instruction."

"I have the greatest esteem for your highness, gracious prince. A
secret power in your countenance, of which you yourself are as yet
ignorant, drew me at first sight irresistibly towards you. You are more
powerful than you are yourself aware. You may command me to the utmost
extent of my power, but--"

"Then let me see an apparition."

"But I must first be certain that you do not require it from mere
curiosity. Though the invisible powers are in some degree at my
command, it is on the sacred condition that I do not abuse my
authority."

"My intentions are most pure. I want truth."

They left their places, and removed to a distant window, where I could
no longer hear them. The English lord, who had likewise overheard this
conversation, took me aside. "Your prince has a noble mind. I am sorry
for him. I will pledge my salvation that he has to do with a rascal."

"Everything depends on the manner in which the sorcerer will extricate
himself from this business."

"Listen to me. The poor devil is now pretending to be scrupulous. He
will not show his tricks unless he hears the sound of gold. There are
nine of us. Let us make a collection. That will spoil his scheme, and
perhaps open the eyes of the prince."

"I am content." The Englishman threw six guineas upon a plate, and went
round gathering subscriptions. Each of us contributed some louis-d'ors.
The Russian officer was particularly pleased with our proposal; he laid
a bank-note of one hundred zechins on the plate, a piece of extravagance
which startled the Englishman. We brought the collection to the prince.
"Be so kind," said the English lord, "as to entreat this gentleman in
our names to let us see a specimen of his art, and to accept of this
small token of our gratitude." The prince added a ring of value, and
offered the whole to the Sicilian. He hesitated a few moments.
"Gentlemen," answered he, "I am humbled by this generosity, but I yield
to your request. Your wishes shall be gratified." At the same time he
rang the bell. "As for this money," continued he, "to which I have no
right myself, permit me to send it to the next monastery to be applied
to pious uses. I shall only keep this ring as a precious memorial of
the worthiest of princes."

Here the landlord entered; and the Sicilian handed him over the money.
"He is a rascal notwithstanding," whispered the Englishman to me.
"He refuses the money because at present his designs are chiefly on the
prince."

"Whom do you wish to see?" asked the sorcerer.

The prince considered for a moment. "We may as well have a great man at
once," said the Englishman. "Ask for Pope Ganganelli. It can make no
difference to this gentleman."

The Sicilian bit his lips. "I dare not call one of the Lord's
anointed."

"That is a pity!" replied the English lord; "perhaps we might have
heard from him what disorder he died of."

"The Marquis de Lanoy," began the prince, "was a French brigadier in the
late war, and my most intimate friend. Having received a mortal wound
in the battle of Hastinbeck, he was carried to my tent, where he soon
after died in my arms. In his last agony he made a sign for me to
approach. 'Prince,' said he to me, 'I shall never again behold my
native land. I must, therefore, acquaint you with a secret known to
none but myself. In a convent on the frontiers of Flanders lives
a --------' He expired. Death cut short the thread of his discourse.
I wish to see my friend to hear the remainder."

"You ask much," exclaimed the Englishman, with an oath. "I proclaim you
the greatest sorcerer on earth if you can solve this problem," continued
he, turning to the Sicilian. We admired the wise choice of the prince,
and unanimously gave our approval to the proposition. In the meantime
the sorcerer paced up and down the room with hasty steps, apparently
struggling with himself.

"This was all that the dying marquis communicated to you?"

"It is all."

"Did you make no further inquiries about the matter in his native
country?"

"I did, but they all proved fruitless."

"Had the Marquis de Lanoy led an irreproachable life? I dare not call
up every shade indiscriminately."

"He died, repenting the excesses of his youth."

"Do you carry with you any token of his!"

"I do." (The prince had really a snuff-box with the marquis' portrait
enamelled in miniature on the lid, which he had placed upon the table
near his plate during the time of supper.)

"I do not want to know what it is. If you will leave me you shall see
the deceased."

He requested us to wait in the other pavilion until he should call us.
At the same time he caused all the furniture to be removed from the
room, the windows to be taken out, and the shutters to be bolted. He
ordered the innkeeper, with whom he appeared to be intimately connected,
to bring a vessel with burning coals, and carefully to extinguish every
fire in the house. Previous to our leaving the room he obliged us
separately to pledge our honor that we would maintain an everlasting
silence respecting everything we should see and hear. All the doors of
the pavilion we were in were bolted behind us when we left it.

It was past eleven, and a dead silence reigned throughout the whole
house. As we were retiring from the saloon the Russian officer asked me
whether we had loaded pistols. "For what purpose?" asked I. "They may
possibly be of some use," replied he. "Wait a moment. I will provide
some." He went away. The Baron F------ and I opened a window opposite
the pavilion we had left. We fancied we heard two persons whispering
to each other, and a noise like that of a ladder applied to one of the
windows. This was, however, a mere conjecture, and I did not dare
affirm it as a fact. The Russian officer came back with a brace of
pistols, after having been absent about half an hour. We saw him load
them with powder and ball. It was almost two o'clock in the morning
when the sorcerer came and announced that all was prepared. Before we
entered the room he desired us to take off our shoes, and to appear in
our shirts, stockings, and under-garments. He bolted the doors after us
as before.

We found in the middle of the room a large, black circle, drawn with
charcoal, the space within which was capable of containing us all very
easily. The planks of the chamber floor next to the wall were taken up
all round the room, so that we stood as it were upon an island. An
altar covered with black cloth was placed in the centre upon a carpet of
red satin. A Chaldee Bible was laid open, together with a skull; and a
silver crucifix was fastened upon the altar. Instead of candles some
spirits of wine were burning in a silver vessel. A thick smoke of
frankincense darkened the room and almost extinguished the lights. The
sorcerer was undressed like ourselves, but barefooted; about his bare
neck he wore an amulet, suspended by a chain of human hair; round his
middle was a white apron marked with cabalistic characters and
symbolical figures.

   [Amulet is a charm or preservative against mischief, witchcraft, or
   diseases. Amulets were made of stone metal, simples, animals, and
   everything which fancy or caprice suggested; and sometimes they
   consisted of words, characters, and sentences ranged in a
   particular order and engraved upon wood, and worn about the neck or
   some other part of the body. At other times they were neither
   written nor engraved, but prepared with many superstitious
   ceremonies, great regard being usually paid to the influence of the
   stars. The Arabians have given to this species of amulets the name
   of talismans. All nations have been fond of amulets. The Jews
   were extremely superstitious in the use of them to drive away
   diseases; and even amongst the Christians of the early times
   amulets were made of the wood of the cross or ribbons, with a text
   of Scripture written on them, as preservatives against diseases.]

He desired us to join hands and to observe profound silence; above all
he ordered us not to ask the apparition any question. He desired the
Englishman and myself, whom he seemed to distrust the most, constantly
to hold two naked swords crossways an inch above his head as long as the
conjuration should last. We formed a half-moon round him; the Russian
officer placed himself close to the English lord, and was the nearest to
the altar. The sorcerer stood upon the satin carpet with his face
turned to the east. He sprinkled holy water in the direction of the
four cardinal points of the compass, and bowed three times before the
Bible. The formula of the conjuration, of which we did not understand a
word, lasted for the space of seven or eight minutes, at the end of
which he made a sign to those who stood close behind to seize him firmly
by the hair. Amid the most violent convulsions he called the deceased
three times by his name, and the third time he stretched forth his hand
towards the crucifix.

On a sudden we all felt at the same instant a stroke as of a flash of
lightning, so powerful that it obliged us to quit each other's hands; a
terrible thunder shook the house; the locks jarred; the doors creaked;
the cover of the silver box fell down and extinguished the light; and on
the opposite wall over the chimney-piece appeared a human figure in a
bloody shirt, with the paleness of death on its countenance.

"Who calls me?" said a hollow, hardly intelligible voice.

"Thy friend," answered the sorcerer, "who respects thy memory, and prays
for thy soul." He named the prince.

The answers of the apparition were always given at very long intervals.

"What does he want with me?" continued the voice.

"He wants to hear the remainder of the confession which then had begun
to impart to him in thy dying hour, but did not finish."

"In a convent on the frontiers of Flanders lives a -------"

The house again trembled; a dreadful thunder rolled; a flash of
lightning illuminated the room; the doors flew open, and another human
figure, bloody and pale as the first, but more terrible, appeared on the
threshold. The spirit in the box began to burn again by itself, and the
hall was light as before.

"Who is amongst us?" exclaimed the sorcerer, terrified, casting a look
of horror on the assemblage; "I did not want thee." The figure advanced
with noiseless and majestic steps directly up to the altar, stood on the
satin Carpet over against us, and touched the crucifix. The first
apparition was seen no more.

"Who calls me?" demanded the second apparition.

"The sorcerer began to tremble. Terror and amazement kept us motionless
for some time. I seized a pistol. The sorcerer snatched it out of my
hand, and fired it at the apparition. The ball rolled slowly upon the
altar, and the figure emerged unaltered from the smoke. The Sorcerer
fell senseless on the ground.

"What is this?" exclaimed the Englishman, in astonishment, aiming a
blow at the ghost with a sword. The figure touched his arm, and the
weapon fell to the ground. The perspiration stood on my brow with
horror. Baron ------ afterwards confessed to me that he had prayed
silently.

During all this time the prince stood fearless and tranquil, his eyes
riveted on the second apparition. "Yes, I know thee," said he at
length, with emotion; "thou art Lanoy; thou art my friend. Whence
comest thou?"

"Eternity is mute. Ask me concerning my past life."

"Who is it that lives in the convent which thou mentionedst to me in thy
last moments?"

"My daughter."

"How? Hast thou been a father?"

"Woe is me that I was not."

"Art thou not happy, Lanoy?"

"God has judged."

"Can I render thee any further service in this world?"

"None but to think of thyself."

"How must I do that?"

"Thou wilt learn at Rome."

The thunder again rolled; a black cloud of smoke filled the room; when
it had dispersed the figure was no longer visible. I forced open one of
the window shutters. It was daylight.

The sorcerer now recovered from his swoon. "Where are we?" asked he,
seeing the daylight.

The Russian officer stood close beside him, and looked over his
shoulder. "Juggler," said he to him, with a terrible countenance,
"Thou shalt summon no more ghosts."

The Sicilian turned round, looked steadfastly in his face, uttered a
loud shriek, and threw himself at his feet.

We looked all at once at the pretended Russian. The prince instantly
recognized the features of the Armenian, and the words he was about to
utter expired on his tongue. We were all as it were petrified with fear
and amazement. Silent and motionless, our eyes were fixed on this
mysterious being, who beheld us with a calm but penetrating look of
grandeur and superiority. A minute elapsed in this awful silence;
another succeeded; not a breath was to be heard.

A violent battering against the door roused us at last from this stupor.
The door fell in pieces into the room, and several officers of justice,
with a guard, rushed in. "Here they are, all together," said the leader
to his followers. Then addressing himself to us, "In the name of the
government," continued he, "I arrest you." We had no time to recollect
ourselves; in a few moments we were surrounded. The Russian officer,
whom I shall again call the Armenian, took the chief officer aside, and,
as far as I in my confusion could notice, I observed him whisper a few
words to the latter, and show him a written paper. The officer, bowing
respectfully, immediately quitted him, turned to us, and taking off his
hat, said "Gentlemen, I humbly beg your pardon for having confounded
you with this impostor. I shall not inquire who you are, as this
gentleman assures me you are men of honor." At the same time he gave
his companions a sign to leave us at liberty. He ordered the Sicilian
to be bound and strictly guarded. "The fellow is ripe for punishment,"
added he; "we have been searching for him these seven months."

The wretched sorcerer was really an object of pity. The terror caused
by the second apparition, and by this unexpected arrest, had together
overpowered his senses. Helpless as a child, he suffered himself to be
bound without resistance. His eyes were wide open and immovable; his
face was pale as death; his lips quivered convulsively, but he was
unable to utter a sound. Every moment we expected he would fall into a
fit. The prince was moved by the situation in which he saw him. He
undertook to procure his discharge from the leader of the police, to
whom he discovered his rank. "Do you know, gracious prince," said the
officer, "for whom your highness is so generously interceding? The
juggling tricks by which he endeavored to deceive you are the least of
his crimes. We have secured his accomplices; they depose terrible facts
against him. He may think himself fortunate if he is only punished with
the galleys."

In the meantime we saw the innkeeper and his family led bound through
the yard. "This man, too?" said the prince; "and what is his crime?"

"He was his comrade and accomplice," answered the officer. "He assisted
him in his deceptions and robberies, and shared the booty with him.
Your highness shall be convinced of it presently. Search the house,"
continued he, turning to his followers, "and bring me immediate notice
of what you find."

The prince looked around for the Armenian, but he had disappeared. In
the confusion occasioned by the arrival of the watch he had found means
to steal away unperceived. The prince was inconsolable; he declared he
would send all his servants, and would himself go in search of this
mysterious man; and he wished me to go with him. I hastened to the
window; the house was surrounded by a great number of idlers, whom the
account of this event had attracted to the spot. It was impossible to
get through the crowd. I represented this to the prince. "If," said I,
"it is the Armenian's intention to conceal himself from us, he is
doubtless better acquainted with the intricacies of the place than we,
and all our inquiries would prove fruitless. Let us rather remain here
a little longer, gracious prince," added I. "This officer, to whom, if
I observed right, he discovered himself, may perhaps give us some
information respecting him."

We now for the first time recollected that we were still undressed.
We hastened to the other pavilion and put on our clothes as quickly
as possible. When we returned they had finished searching the house.

On removing the altar and some of the boards of the floor a spacious
vault was discovered. It was high enough, for a man might sit upright
in it with ease, and was separated from the cellar by a door and a
narrow staircase. In this vault they found an electrical machine, a
clock, and a little silver bell, which, as well as the electrical
machine, was in communication with the altar and the crucifix that was
fastened upon it. A hole had been made in the window-shutter opposite
the chimney, which opened and shut with a slide. In this hole, as we
learnt afterwards, was fixed a magic lantern, from which the figure of
the ghost had been reflected on the opposite wall, over the chimney.
From the garret and the cellar they brought several drums, to which
large leaden bullets were fastened by strings; these had probably been
used to imitate the roaring of thunder which we had heard.

On searching the Sicilian's clothes they found, in a case, different
powders, genuine mercury in vials and boxes, phosphorus in a glass
bottle, and a ring, which we immediately knew to be magnetic, because it
adhered to a steel button that by accident had been placed near it. In
his coat-pockets were found a rosary, a Jew's beard, a dagger, and a
brace of pocket-pistols. "Let us see whether they are loaded," said one
of the watch, and fired up the chimney.

"Jesus Maria!" cried a hollow voice, which we knew to be that of the
first apparition, and at the same instant a bleeding person came
tumbling down the chimney. "What! not yet laid, poor ghost!" cried the
Englishman, while we started back in affright. "Home to thy grave.
Thou hast appeared what thou wert not; now thou wilt become what thou
didst but seem."

"Jesus Maria! I am wounded," repeated the man in the chimney. The ball
had fractured his right leg. Care was immediately taken to have the
wound dressed.

"But who art thou?" said the English lord; "and what evil spirit
brought thee here?"

"I am a poor mendicant friar," answered the wounded man; "a strange
gentleman gave me a zechin to--"

"Repeat a speech. And why didst thou not withdraw as soon as thy task
was finished?"

I was waiting for a signal which we had agreed on to continue my speech;
but as this signal was not given, I was endeavoring to get away, when I
found the ladder had been removed"

"And what was the formula he taught thee?"

The wounded man fainted away; nothing more could be got from him. In
the meantime the prince turned towards the principal officer of the
watch, giving him at the same time some pieces of gold. "You have
rescued us," said he, "from the hands of an impostor, and done us
justice without even knowing who we were; would you increase our
gratitude by telling us the name of the stranger who, by speaking
only a few words, was able to procure us our liberty."

"Whom do you mean?" inquired the party addressed, with an air which
plainly showed that the question was useless.

"The gentleman in a Russian uniform, who took you aside, showed you a
written paper, and whispered a few words, in consequence of which you
immediately set us free."

"Do not you know the gentleman? Was he not one of your company?"

"No," answered the prince; "and I have very important reasons for
wishing to be more intimately acquainted with him."

"I know very little of him myself. Even his name is unknown to me, and
I saw him to-day for the first time in my life."

"How? And was he in so short a time, and by using only a few words,
able to convince you both of our innonocence and his own?"

"Undoubtedly, with a single word."

"And this was? I confess I wish to know it."

"This stranger, my prince," said the officer, weighing the zechins in
his band,--"you have been too generous for me to make a secret of it any
longer,--this stranger is an officer of the Inquisition."

"Of the Inquisition? This man?"

"He is, indeed, gracious prince. I was convinced of it by the paper
which he showed to me."

"This man, did you say? That cannot be."

"I will tell your highness more. It was upon his information that I
have been sent here to arrest the sorcerer."

We looked at each other in the utmost astonishment.

"Now we know," said the English lord at length, "why the poor devil of a
sorcerer started in such a terror when he looked more closely into his
face. He knew him to be a spy, and that is why he uttered that shriek,
and fell down before him."

"No!" interrupted the prince. "This man is whatever he wishes to be,
and whatever the moment requires him to be. No mortal ever knew what he
really was. Did you not see the knees of the Sicilian sink under him,
when he said, with that terrible voice: 'Thou shalt summon no more
ghosts?' There is something inexplicable in this matter. No person can
persuade me that one man should be thus alarmed at the sight of
another."

"The sorcerer himself will probably explain it the best," said the
English lord, "if that gentleman," pointing to the officer, "will afford
us an opportunity of speaking with his prisoner."

The officer consented to it, and, having agreed with the Englishman to
visit the Sicilian in the morning, we returned to Venice.

   [The Count O-------, whose narrative I have thus far literally
   copied, describes minutely the various effects of this adventure
   upon the mind of the prince and of his companions, and recounts a
   variety of tales of apparitions which this event gave occasion to
   introduce. I shall omit giving them to the reader, on the
   supposition that he is as curious as myself to know the conclusion
   of the adventure, and its effect on the conduct of the prince. I
   shall only add that the prince got no sleep the remainder of the
   night, and that he waited with impatience for the moment which was
   to disclose this incomprehensible mystery, Note of the German
   Editor.]

Lord Seymour (this was the name of the Englishman) called upon us very
early in the forenoon, and was soon after followed by a confidential
person whom the officer had entrusted with the care of conducting us to
the prison.

I forgot to mention that one of the prince's domestics, a native of
Bremen, who had served him many years with the strictest fidelity, and
had entirely gained his confidence, had been missing for several days.
Whether he had met with any accident, whether he had been kidnapped,
or had voluntarily absented himself, was a secret to every one. The
last supposition was extremely improbable, as his conduct had always
been quiet and regular, and nobody had ever found fault with him. All
that his companions could recollect was that he had been for some time
very melancholy, and that, whenever he had a moment's leisure, he used
to visit a certain monastery in the Giudecca, where he had formed an
acquaintance with some monks. This induced us to suppose that he might
have fallen into the hands of the priests and had been persuaded to turn
Catholic; and as the prince was very tolerant, or rather indifferent
about matters of this kind, and the few inquiries he caused to be made
proved unsuccessful, he gave up the search. He, however, regretted the
loss of this man, who had constantly attended him in his campaigns,
had always been faithfully attached to him, and whom it was therefore
difficult to replace in a foreign country. The very same day the
prince's banker, whom he had commissioned to provide him with another
servant, was announced at the moment we were going out. He presented to
the prince a middle-aged man, well-dressed, and of good appearance, who
had been for a long time secretary to a procurator, spoke French and a
little German, and was besides furnished with the best recommendations.
The prince was pleased with the man's physiognomy; and as he declared
that he would be satisfied with such wages as his service should be
found to merit, the prince engaged him immediately.

We found the Sicilian in a private prison where, as the officer assured
us, he had been lodged for the present, to accommodate the prince,
before being removed to the lead roofs, to which there is no access.
These lead roofs are the most terrible prisons in Venice. They are
situated on the top of the palace of St. Mark, and the miserable
criminals suffer so dreadfully from the heat of the leads occasioned by
the heat of the burning rays of the sun descending directly upon them
that they frequently become delirious. The Sicilian had recovered from
his yesterday's terror, and rose respectfully on seeing the prince
enter. He had fetters on one hand and on one leg, but was able to walk
about the room at liberty. The sentinel at the door withdrew as soon as
we had entered.

"I come," said the prince, "to request an explanation of you on two
subjects. You owe me the one, and it shall not be to your disadvantage
if you grant me the other."

"My part is now acted," replied the Sicilian, "my destiny is in your
hands."

"Your sincerity alone can mitigate your punishment.

"Speak, honored prince, I am ready to answer you. I have nothing now to
lose."

"You showed me the face of the Armenian in a looking-glass. How was
this effected?"

"What you saw was no looking-glass. A portrait in crayons behind a
glass, representing a man in an Armenian dress, deceived you. My
quickness, the twilight, and your astonishment favored the deception.
The picture itself must have been found among the other things seized at
the inn."

"But how could you read my thoughts so accurately as to hit upon the
Armenian?"

"This was not difficult, your highness. You must frequently have
mentioned your adventure with the Armenian at table in the presence of
your domestics. One of my accomplices accidentally got acquainted with
one of your domestics in the Giudecca, and learned from him gradually as
much as I wished to know."

"Where is the man?" asked the prince; "I have missed him, and doubtless
you know of his desertion."

"I swear to your honor, sir, that I know not a syllable about it. I
have never seen him myself, nor had any other concern with him than the
one before mentioned."

"Proceed with your story," said the prince.

"By this means, also, I received the first information of your residence
and of your adventures at Venice; and I resolved immediately to profit
by them. You see, prince, I am sincere. I was apprised of your
intended excursion on the Brenta. I prepared for it, and a key that
dropped by chance from your pocket afforded me the first opportunity of
trying my art upon you."

"How! Have I been mistaken? The adventure of the key was then a trick
of yours, and not of the Armenian? You say this key fell from my
pocket?"

"You accidentally dropped it in taking out your purse, and I seized an
opportunity, when no one noticed me, to cover it with my foot. The
person of whom you bought the lottery-ticket acted in concert with me.
He caused you to draw it from a box where there was no blank, and the
key had been in the snuff-box long before it came into your possession."

"I understand you. And the monk who stopped me in my way and addressed
me in a manner so solemn."

"Was the same who, as I hear, has been wounded in the chimney. He is
one of my accomplices, and under that disguise has rendered me many
important services."

"But what purpose was this intended to answer?"

"To render you thoughtful; to inspire you with such a train of ideas as
should be favorable to the wonders I intended afterwards to show you."

"The pantomimical dance, which ended in a manner so extraordinary, was
at least none of your contrivance?"

"I had taught the girl who represented the queen. Her performance was
the result of my instructions. I supposed your highness would be not a
little astonished to find yourself known in this place, and (I entreat
your pardon, prince) your adventure with the Armenian gave me reason to
hope that you were already disposed to reject natural interpretations,
and to attribute so marvellous an occurrence to supernatural agency."

"Indeed," exclaimed the prince, at once angry and amazed, and casting
upon me a significant look; "indeed, I did not expect this."

   [Neither did probably the greater number of my readers. The
   circumstance of the crown deposited at the feet of the prince, in a
   manner so solemn and unexpected, and the former prediction of the
   Armenian, seem so naturally and obviously to aim at the same object
   that at the first reading of these memoirs I immediately remembered
   the deceitful speech of the witches in Macbeth:--

       "Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
        All hail, Macbeth! that shall be king hereafter!"

   and probably the same thing has occurred to many of my readers.

   When a certain conviction has taken hold upon a man's mind in a
   solemn and extraordinary manner, it is sure to follow that all
   subsequent ideas which are in any way capable of being associated
   with this conviction should attach themselves to, and in some
   degree seem to be consequent upon it. The Sicilian, who seems to
   have had no other motive for his whole scheme than to astonish the
   prince by showing him that his rank was discovered, played, without
   being himself aware of it, the very game which most furthered the
   view of the Armenian; but however much of its interest this
   adventure will lose if I take away the higher motive which at first
   seemed to influence these actions, I must by no means infringe upon
   historical truth, but must relate the facts exactly as they
   occurred.--Note of the German Editor.]

"But," continued he, after a long silence, "how did you produce the
figure which appeared on the wall over the chimney?"

"By means of a magic lantern that was fixed in the opposite
window-shutter, in which you have undoubtedly observed an opening."

"But how did it happen that not one of us perceived the lantern?" asked
Lord Seymour.

"You remember, my lord, that on your re-entering the room it was
darkened by a thick smoke of frankincense. I likewise took the
precaution to place the boards which had been taken up from the floor
upright against the wall near the window. By these means I prevented
the shutter from immediately attracting observation. Moreover, the
lantern remained covered by a slide until you had taken your places, and
there was no further reason to apprehend that you would institute any
examination of the saloon."

"As I looked out of the window in the other pavilion," said I,
"I fancied I heard a noise like that of a person placing a ladder
against the side of the house. Was I right?"

"Exactly; it was the ladder upon which my assistants stood to direct the
magic-lantern."

"The apparition," continued the prince, "had really a superficial
likeness to my deceased friend, and what was particularly striking, his
hair, which was of a very light color, was exactly imitated. Was this
mere chance, or how did you come by such a resemblance?"

"Your highness must recollect that you had at table a snuff-box by your
plate, with an enamelled portrait of an officer in a uniform. I asked
whether you had anything about you as a memento of your friend, and as
your highness answered in the affirmative, I conjectured that it might
be the box. I had attentively examined the picture during supper, and
being very expert in drawing and not less happy in taking likenesses, I
had no difficulty in giving to my shade the superficial resemblance you
have perceived, the more so as the marquis' features are very marked."

"But the figure seemed to move?"

"It appeared so, yet it was not the figure that moved but the smoke
on which the light was reflected."

"And the man who fell down in the chimney spoke for the apparition?"

"He did."

"But he could not hear your question distinctly."

"There was no occasion for it. Your highness will recollect that I
cautioned you all very strictly not to propose any question to the
apparition yourselves. My inquiries and his answers were preconcerted
between us; and that no mistake might happen, I caused him to speak at
long intervals, which he counted by the beating of a watch."

"You ordered the innkeeper carefully to extinguish every fire in the
house with water; this was undoubtedly--"

"To save the man in the chimney from the danger of being suffocated;
because the chimneys in the house communicate with each other, and I did
not think myself very secure from your retinue."

"How did it happen," asked Lord Seymour, "that your ghost appeared
neither sooner nor later than you wished him?"

"The ghost was in the room for some time before I called him, but while
the room was lighted, the shade was too faint to be perceived. When the
formula of the conjuration was finished, I caused the cover of the box,
in which the spirit was burning, to drop down, the saloon was darkened,
and it was not till then that the figure on the wall could be distinctly
seen, although it had been reflected there a considerable time before."

"When the ghost appeared, we all felt an electric shock. How was that
managed?"

"You have discovered the machine under the altar. You have also seen
that I was standing upon a silk carpet. I directed you to form a
half-moon around me, and to take each other's hands. When the crisis
approached, I gave a sign to one of you to seize me by the hair. The
silver crucifix was the conductor, and you felt the electric shock when
I touched it with my hand."

"You ordered Count O----- and myself," continued Lord Seymour, "to hold
two naked swords crossways over your head, during the whole time of the
conjuration; for what purpose?"

"For no other than to engage your attention during the operation;
because I distrusted you two the most. You remember, that I expressly
commanded you to hold the sword one inch above my head; by confining you
exactly to this distance, I prevented you from looking where I did not
wish you. I had not then perceived my principal enemy."

"I own," cried Lord Seymour, "you acted with due precaution--but why
were we obliged to appear undressed?"

"Merely to give a greater solemnity to the scene, and to excite your
imaginations by the strangeness of the proceeding."

"The second apparition prevented your ghost from speaking," said the
prince. "What should we have learnt from him?"

"Nearly the same as what you heard afterwards. It was not without
design that I asked your highness whether you had told me everything
that the deceased communicated to you, and whether you had made any
further inquiries on this subject in his country. I thought this was
necessary, in order to prevent the deposition of the ghost from being
contradicted by facts with which you were previously acquainted.
Knowing likewise that every man in his youth is liable to error,
I inquired whether the life of your friend had been irreproachable,
and on your answer I founded that of the ghost."

"Your explanation of this matter is satisfactory," resumed the prince,
after a short silence; "but there remains a principal circumstance which
I must ask you to clear up."

"If it be in my power, and--"

"No conditions! Justice, in whose hands you now are, might perhaps not
interrogate you with so much delicacy. Who was this unknown at whose
feet we saw you fall? What do you know of him? How did you get
acquainted with him? And in what way was he connected with the
appearance of the second apparition?

"Your highness"--

"On looking at him more attentively, you gave a loud scream, and fell at
his feet. What are we to understand by that?"

"This man, your highness"--He stopped, grew visibly perplexed, and with
an embarrassed countenance looked around him. "Yes, prince, by all that
is sacred, this unknown is a terrible being."

"What do you know of him? What connection have you with him? Do not
hope to conceal the truth from us."

"I shall take care not to do so,--for who will warrant that he is not
among us at this very moment?"

"Where? Who?" exclaimed we altogether, half-amused, half-startled,
looking about the room. "That is impossible."

"Oh! to this man, or whatever he may be, things still more
incomprehensible are possible."

"But who is he? Whence comes he? Is he an Armenian or a Russian? Of
the characters be assumes, which is his real one?"

"He is nothing of what he appears to be. There are few conditions or
countries of which he has not worn the mask. No person knows who he is,
whence he comes, or whither he goes. That he has been for a long time
in Egypt, as many pretend, and that he has brought from thence, out of a
catacomb, his, occult sciences, I will neither affirm nor deny. Here we
only know him by the name of the Incomprehensible. How old, for
instance, do you suppose he is?"

"To judge from his appearance he can scarcely have passed forty."

"And of what age do you suppose I am?"

"Not far from fifty."

"Quite right; and I must tell you that I was but a boy of seventeen when
my grandfather spoke to me of this marvellous man whom he had seen at
Famagusta; at which time he appeared nearly of the same age as he does
at present."

"This is exaggerated, ridiculous, and incredible."

"By no means. Were I not prevented by these fetters I could produce
vouchers whose dignity and respectability should leave you no room for
doubt. There are several credible persons who remember having seen him,
each, at the same time, in different parts of the globe. No sword can
wound, no poison can hurt, no fire can burn him; no vessel in which he
embarks can be wrecked. Time itself seems to lose its power over him.
Years do not affect his constitution, nor age whiten his hair. Never
was he seen to take any food. Never did he approach a woman. No sleep
closes his eyes. Of the twenty-four hours in the day there is only one
which he cannot command; during which no person ever saw him, and during
which he never was employed in any terrestrial occupation."

"And this hour is?"

"The twelfth in the night. When the clock strikes twelve at midnight
he ceases to belong to the living. In whatever place he is he must
immediately be gone; whatever business he is engaged in he must
instantly leave it. The terrible sound of the hour of midnight tears
him from the arms of friendship, wrests him from the altar, and would
drag him away even in the agonies of death. Whither he then goes, or
what he is then engaged in, is a secret to every one. No person
ventures to interrogate, still less to follow him. His features, at
this dread ful hour, assume a sternness of expression so gloomy and
terrifying that no person has courage sufficient to look him in the
face, or to speak a word to him. However lively the conversation may
have been, a dead silence immediately succeeds it, and all around wait
for his return in respectful silence without venturing to quit their
seats, or to open the door through which he has passed."

"Does nothing extraordinary appear in his person when he returns?"
inquired one of our party.

"Nothing, except that he seems pale and exhausted, like a man who has
just suffered a painful operation, or received some disastrous
intelligence. Some pretend to have seen drops of blood on his linen,
but with what degree of veracity I cannot affirm."

"Did no person ever attempt to conceal the approach of this hour from
him, or endeavor to preoccupy his mind in such a manner as to make him
forget it?"

"Once only, it is said, he missed the appointed time. The company was
numerous and remained together late in the night. All the clocks and
watches were purposely set wrong, and the warmth of conversation carried
him away. When the stated hour arrived he suddenly became silent and
motionless; his limbs continued in the position in which this instant
had arrested them; his eyes were fixed; his pulse ceased to beat. All
the means employed to awake him proved fruitless, and this situation
endured till the hour had elapsed. He then revived on a sudden without
any assistance, opened his eyes, and resumed his speech at the very
syllable which he was pronouncing at the moment of interruption. The
general consternation discovered to him what had happened, and he
declared, with an awful solemnity, that they ought to think themselves
happy in having escaped with the fright alone. The same night he
quitted forever the city where this circumstance had occurred. The
common opinion is that during this mysterious hour he converses with his
genius. Some even suppose him to be one of the departed who is allowed
to pass twenty-three hours of the day among the living, and that in the
twenty-fourth his soul is obliged to return to the infernal regions to
suffer its punishment. Some believe him to be the famous Apollonius of
Tyana; and others the disciple of John, of whom it is said, 'He shall
remain until the last judgment.'"

"A character so wonderful," replied the prince, "cannot fail to give
rise to whimsical conjectures. But all this you profess to know only by
hearsay, and yet his behavior to you and yours to him, seemed to
indicate a more intimate acquaintance. Is it not founded upon some
particular event in which you have yourself been concerned? Conceal
nothing from us."

The Sicilian looked at us doubtingly and remained silent.

"If it concerns something," continued the prince, "that you do not wish
to be made known, I promise you, in the name of these two gentlemen, the
most inviolable secrecy. But speak candidly and without reserve."

"Could I hope," answered the prisoner, after a long silence, "that you
would not make use of what I am going to relate as evidence against me,
I would tell you a remarkable adventure of this Armenian, of which I
myself was witness, and which will leave you no doubt of his
supernatural powers. But I beg leave to conceal some of the names."

"Cannot you do it without this condition?"

"No, your highness. There is a family concerned in it whom I have
reason to respect."

"Let us hear your story."

"It is about five years ago," began the Sicilian, "that at Naples, where
I was practising my art with tolerable success, I became acquainted with
a person of the name of Lorenzo del M-------, chevalier of the Order of
St. Stephen, a young and rich nobleman, of one of the first families in
the kingdom, who loaded me with kindnesses, and seemed to have a great
esteem for my occult knowledge. He told me that the Marquis del M--nte,
his father, was a zealous admirer of the cabala, and would think himself
happy in having a philosopher like myself (for such he was pleased to
call me) under his roof. The marquis lived in one of his country seats
on the sea-shore, about seven miles from Naples. There, almost entirely
secluded from the world, he bewailed, the loss of a beloved son, of whom
he had been deprived by a terrible calamity. The chevalier gave me to
understand that he and his family might perhaps have occasion to employ
me on a matter of the most grave importance, in the hope of gaining
through my secret science some information, to procure which all natural
means had been tried in vain. He added, with a very significant look,
that he himself might, perhaps at some future period, have reason to
look upon me as the restorer of his tranquillity, and of all his earthly
happiness. The affair was as follows:--

"This Lorenzo was the younger son of the marquis, and for that reason
had been destined for the church; the family estates were to descend to
the eldest. Jeronymo, which was the name of the latter, had spent many
years on his travels, and had returned to his country about seven years
prior to the event which I am about to relate, in order to celebrate his
marriage with the only daughter of the neighboring Count C----tti. This
marriage had been determined on by the parents during the infancy of the
children, in order to unite the large fortunes of the two houses. But
though this agreement was made by the two families, without consulting
the hearts of the parties concerned, the latter had mutually pledged
their faith to each other in secret. Jeronymo del M------ and Antonia
C----- had been brought up together, and the little restraint imposed on
two children, whom their parents were already accustomed to regard as
destined for each other, soon produced between them a connection of the
tenderest kind; the congeniality of their tempers cemented this
intimacy; and in later years it ripened insensibly into love. An
absence of four years, far from cooling this passion, had only served to
inflame it; and Jeronymo returned to the arms of his intended bride as
faithful and as ardent as if they had never been separated.

"The raptures occasioned by his return had not yet subsided, and the
preparations for the happy day were advancing with the utmost zeal and
activity, when the bridegroom disappeared. He used frequently to pass
whole afternoons in a summer-house which commanded a prospect of the
sea, and was accustomed to take the diversion of sailing on the water.
One day, on an evening spent in this manner, it was observed that he
remained absent a much longer time than usual, and his friends began to
be very uneasy on his account. Messengers were despatched after him,
vessels were sent to sea in quest of him; no person had seen him. None
of his servants were missed; he must, therefore, have gone alone. Night
came on, and he did not appear. The next morning dawned; the day
passed, the evening succeeded--, Jeronymo came not. Already they had
begun to give themselves up to the most melancholy conjectures when the
news arrived that an Algerine pirate had landed the preceeding day on
that coast, and carried off several of the inhabitants. Two galleys
which were ready for sea were immediately manned; the old marquis
himself embarked in one of them, to attempt the deliverance of his son
at the peril of his own life. On the third morning they perceived the
corsair. They had the advantage of the wind; they were just about to
overtake the pirate, and had even approached so near that Lorenzo, who
was in one of the galleys, fancied that he saw upon the deck of the
adversary's ship a signal made by his brother, when a sudden storm
separated the vessels. Hardly could the damaged galleys sustain the
fury of the tempest. The pirate in the meantime had disappeared, and
the distressed state of the other vessels obliged them to land at Malta.
The affliction of the family knew no bounds. The distracted old marquis
tore his gray hairs in the utmost violence of grief; and fears were
entertained for the life of the young countess. Five years were
consumed in fruitless inquiries. Diligent search was made along all the
coast of Barbary; immense sums were offered for the ransom of the poor
marquis, but no person came forward to claim them. The only probable
conjecture which remained for the family to form was, that the same
storm which had separated the galleys from the pirate had destroyed the
latter, and that the whole ship's company had perished in the waves.

"But, however this supposition might be, it did not by any means amount
to a certainty, and could not authorize the family altogether to
renounce the hope that the lost Jeronymo might again appear. In case,
however, that he was really dead, either the family must become extinct,
or the younger son must relinquish the church, and assume the rights of
the elder. As justice, on the one hand, seemed to oppose the latter
measure, so, on the other hand, the necessity of preserving the family
from annihilation required that the scruple should not be carried too
far. In the meantime through grief and the infirmities of age, the old
marquis was fast sinking to his grave; every unsuccessful attempt
diminished the hope of finding his lost son; he saw the danger of his
family's becoming extinct, which might be obviated by a trifling
injustice on his part, in consenting to favor his younger son at the
expense of the elder. The consummation of his alliance with the house
of Count C---tti required only that a name should be changed, for the
object of the two families was equally accomplished, whether Antonia
became the wife of Lorenzo or of Jeronymo. The faint probability of the
latter's appearing again weighed but little against the certain and
pressing danger of the total extinction of the family, and the old
marquis, who felt the approach of death every day more and more,
ardently wished at least to die free from this inquietude.

"Lorenzo, however, who was to be principally benefited by this measure,
opposed it with the greatest obstinacy. Alike unmoved by the
allurements of an immense fortune, and the attractions of the beautiful
and accomplished being whom his family were about to deliver into his
arms, he refused, on principles the most generous and conscientious, to
invade the rights of a brother, who perhaps was still alive, and might
some day return to claim his own. 'Is not the lot of my dear Jeronymo,'
said he, 'made sufficiently miserable by the horrors of a long
captivity, that I should yet add bitterness to his cup of grief by
stealing from him all that he holds most dear? With what conscience
could I supplicate heaven for his return when his wife is in my arms?
With what countenance could I hasten to meet him should he at last be
restored to us by some miracle? And even supposing that he is torn
from us forever, how can we better honor his memory than by keeping
constantly open the chasm which his death has caused in our circle? Can
we better show our respect to him than by sacrificing our dearest hopes
upon his tomb, and keeping untouched, as a sacred deposit, what was
peculiarly his own?'

"But all the arguments which fraternal delicacy could adduce were
insufficient to reconcile the old marquis to the idea of being obliged
to witness the extinction of a pedigree which nine centuries had beheld
flourishing. All that Lorenzo could obtain was a respite of two years
before leading the affianced bride of his brother to the altar. During
this period they continued their inquiries with the utmost diligence.
Lorenzo himself made several voyages, and exposed his person to many
dangers. No trouble, no expense was spared to recover the lost
Jeronymo. These two years, however, like those which preceded them,
were in vain?"

"And the Countess Antonia?" said the prince, "You tell us nothing of
her. Could she so calmly submit to her fate? I cannot suppose it."

"Antonia," answered the Sicilian, "experienced the most violent struggle
between duty and inclination, between hate and admiration. The
disinterested generosity of a brother's love affected her; she felt
herself forced to esteem a person whom she could never love. Her heart
was torn by conflicting sentiments. But her repugnance to the chevalier
seemed to increase in the same degree as his claims upon her esteem
augmented. Lorenzo perceived with heartfelt sorrow the grief that
consumed her youth. A tender compassion insensibly assumed the place of
that indifference with which, till then, he had been accustomed to
regard her; but this treacherous sentiment quickly deceived him, and an
ungovernable passion began by degrees to shake the steadiness of his
virtue--a virtue which, till then, had been unequalled.

"He, however, still obeyed the dictates of generosity, though at the
expense 'of his love. By his efforts alone was the unfortunate victim
protected against the arbitrary proceedings of the rest of the family.
But his endeavors were ineffectual. Every victory he gained over his
passion rendered him more worthy of Antonia; and the disinterestedness
with which he refused her left her no excuse for resistance.

"This was the state of affairs when the chevalier engaged me to visit
him at his father's villa. The earnest recommendation of my patron
procured me a reception which exceeded my most sanguine hopes. I must
not forget to mention that by some remarkable operations I had
previously rendered my name famous in different lodges of Freemasons,
which circumstance may, perhaps, have contributed to strengthen the old
marquis' confidence in me, and to heighten his expectations. I beg you
will excuse me from describing particularly the lengths I went with him,
and the means which I employed; you may judge of them from what I have
already confessed to you. Profiting by the mystic books which I found
in his very extensive library, I was soon able to converse with him in
his own language, and to adorn my system of the invisible world with the
most extraordinary inventions. In a short time I could make him believe
whatever I pleased, and he would have sworn as readily as upon an
article in the canon. Moreover, as he was very devout, and was by nature
somewhat credulous, my fables received credence the more readily, and in
a short time I had so completely surrounded and hemmed him in with
mystery that he cared for nothing that was not supernatural. In short I
became the patron saint of the house. The usual subject of my lectures
was the exaltation of human nature, and the intercourse of men with
superior beings; the infallible Count Gabalis was my oracle.

   [A mystical work of that title, written in French in 1670 by the
   Abbe do Villars, and translated into English in 1600. Pope is said
   to have borrowed from it the machinery of his Rape of the Lock.-H.
   G. B.]

"The young countess, whose mind since the loss of her lover had been more
occupied in the world of spirits than in that of nature, and who had,
moreover, a strong shade of melancholy in her composition, caught my
hints with a fearful satisfaction. Even the servants contrived to have
some business in the room when I was speaking, and seizing now and then
one of my expressions, joined the fragments together in their own way.

"Two months were passed in this manner at the marquis' villa, when the
chevalier one morning entered my apartment. A deep sorrow was painted
on his countenance, his features were convulsed, he threw himself into a
chair, with gestures of despair.

"'Captain,' said he, 'it is all over with me, I must begone; I can
remain here no longer.'

"'What is the matter, chevalier? What ails you?'

"'Oh! this fatal passion!' said he, starting frantically from his chair.
'I have combated it like a man; I can resist it no longer.'

"'And whose fault is it but yours, my dear chevalier? Are they not all
in your favor? Your father, your relations.'

"'My father, my relations! What are they to me? I want not a forced
union, but one of inclination, Have not I a rival? Alas! and what a
rival! Perhaps among the dead! Oh! let me go! Let me go to the end
of the world,--I must find my brother.'

"'What! after so many unsuccessful attempts can you still cherish hope?'

"'Hope!' replied the chevalier; 'alas! no. It has long since vanished
from my heart, but it has not from hers. Of what consequence are my
sentiments? Can I be happy while there remains a gleam of hope in
Antonia's heart? Two words, my friend, would end my torments. But it
is in vain. My destiny must continue to be miserable till eternity
shall break its long silence, and the grave shall speak in my behalf.'

"'Is it then a state of certainty that would render you happy?'

"'Happy! Alas! I doubt whether I can ever again be happy. But
uncertainty is of all others the most dreadful pain.'

"After a short interval of silence he suppressed his emotion, and
continued mournfully, 'If he could but see my torments! Surely a
constancy which renders his brother miserable cannot add to his
happiness. Can it be just that the living should suffer so much for the
sake of the dead, who can no longer enjoy earthly felicity? If he knew
the pangs I suffer,' continued he, hiding his face on my shoulder, while
the tears streamed from his eyes, 'yes, perhaps he himself would
conducts her to my arms.'

"'But is there no possibility of gratifying your wishes?'

"He started. 'What do you say, my friend?'

"'Less important occasions than the present,' said I, 'have disturbed
the repose of the dead for the sake of the living. Is not the whole
earthly happiness of a man, of a brother'

"'The whole earthly happiness! Ah, my friend, I feel what you say is
but too true; my entire felicity.'

"'And the tranquillity of a distressed family, are not these sufficient
to justify such a measure? Undoubtedly. If any sublunary concern can
authorize us to interrupt the peace of the blessed, to make use of a
power'

"'For God's sake, my friend,' said he, interrupting me, no more of this.
Once, I avow it, I had such a thought; I think I mentioned it to you;
but I have long since rejected it as horrid and abominable.'

"You will have conjectured already," continued the Sicilian, "to what
this conversation led us. I endeavored to overcome the scruples of the
chevalier, and at last succeeded. We resolved to summon the spirit of
the deceased Jeronymo. I only stipulated for the delay of a fortnight,
in order, as I pretended, to prepare myself in a suitable manner for so
solemn an act. The time being expired, and my machinery in readiness,
I took advantage of a very gloomy day, when we were all assembled as
usual, to obtain the consent of the family, or rather, gradually to lead
them to the subject, so that they themselves requested it of me. The
most difficult part of the task was to obtain the approbation of
Antonia, whose presence was most essential. My endeavors were, however,
greatly assisted by the melancholy turn of her mind, and perhaps still
more so by a faint hope that Jeronymo might still be living, and
therefore would not appear. A want of confidence in the thing itself,
or a doubt of my ability, was the only obstacle which I had not to
contend with.

"Having obtained the consent of the family, the third day was fixed on
for the operation. I prepared them for the solemn transaction by
mystical instruction, by fasting, solitude, and prayers, which I ordered
to be continued till late in the night. Much use was also made of a
certain musical instrument, unknown till that time, and which, in such
cases, has often been found very powerful. The effect of these
artifices was so much beyond my expectation that the enthusiasm to which
on this occasion I was obliged to force myself was infinitely heightened
by that of my audience. The anxiously-expected hour at last arrived."

"I guess," said the prince, "whom you are now going to introduce. But
go on, go on."

"No, your highness. The incantation succeeded according to my wishes."