ce, and a public execution was supplanted by a
midnight assassination. It would be an abuse of language to dignify such
a proceeding with the title of a judicial murder.

[Sidenote: NOTICE OF GACHARD.]

Yet Philip showed no misgivings as to his own course in the matter. He
had made up his mind as to the guilt of Montigny. He had been false to
his king and false to his religion; offences which death only could
expiate. Still we find Philip resorting to a secret execution, although
Alva, as we have seen, had supposed that sentence was to be executed on
Montigny in the same open manner as it had been on the other victims of
the bloody tribunal. But the king shrunk from exposing a deed to the
public eye, which, independently of its atrocity in other respects,
involved so flagrant a violation of good faith towards the party who had
come, at his sovereign's own desire, on a public mission to Madrid. With
this regard to the opinions of his own age, it may seem strange that
Philip should not have endeavored to efface every vestige of his
connection with the act, by destroying the records which established it.
On the contrary, he not only took care that such records should be made,
but caused them, and all other evidence of the affair, to be permanently
preserved in the national archives. There they lay for the inspection of
posterity, which was one day to sit in judgment on his conduct.

* * * * *

In the part of this History which relates to the Netherlands, I have
been greatly indebted to two eminent scholars of that country. The first
of these, M. Gachard, who had the care of the royal archives of Belgium,
was commissioned by his government, in 1844, to visit the Peninsula for
the purpose of collecting materials for the illustration of the national
history. The most important theatre of his labors was Simancas, which,
till the time of his visit, had been carefully closed to natives as well
as foreigners. M. Gachard profited by the more liberal arrangements
which, under certain restrictions, opened its historical treasures to
the student. The result of his labors he is now giving to the world by
the publication of his "Correspondance de Philippe II.," of which two
volumes have already been printed. The work is published in a beautiful
form, worthy of the auspices under which it has appeared. It consists
chiefly of the correspondence carried on by the Spanish government and
the authorities of