seems to one to have been a battle-ground from the dawn of history up to
the night of June Eighteenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, with a few
incidental skirmishes since, for it is difficult to stop short. And it
surely was meet that Napoleon should have gone up there to receive his
Waterloo, and charge his cavalry into a sunken roadway, making a bridge
across with a mingled mass of men and horses; upon which site now is a
huge mound thrown up by the English, surmounted by a gigantic bronze lion
cast from the captured cannon of the French.

Napoleon belonged to the Latin race: he pushed his rule north into
Flanders, and there his prowess ended--there at the same place where
Spanish rule had been throttled and turned back upon itself. "Thus far,
and no farther." Jan Rubens was right. But he paid dearly for his
prophecy.

When William the Silent was away on his many warfaring expeditions, the
man who had charge of certain of his affairs was Jan Rubens. Naturally
this brought Rubens into an acquaintanceship with the wife of the silent
prince. Rubens was a handsome man, ready in speech, and of the kind that
makes friends easily. And if the wife of the Prince of Orange liked the
vivacious Rubens better than the silent warrior (who won his sobriquet,
they do say, through density of emotion and lack of ideas), why, who can
blame her!

But Rubens had a wife of his own, to whom he was fondly attached; and
this wife was also the close and trusted friend of the woman whose
husband was off to the wars. And yet when this dense and silent man came
back from one of his expeditions, it was only publicly to affront and
disgrace his wife, and to cast Jan Rubens into a dungeon. No doubt the
Prince was jealous of the courtly Rubens--and the Iagos are a numerous
tribe. But Othello's limit had been reached. He damned the innocent woman
to the lowest pit, and visited his wrath on the man.

Of course I know full well that all Northern Europe once rang with shrill
gossip over the affair, and as usual the woman was declared the guilty
party. Even yet, when topics for scandal in Belgium run short, this old
tale is revived and gone over--sides being taken. I've gone over it, too,
and although I may be in the minority, just as I possibly am as to the
"guilt" of Eve, yet I stand firm on the side of the woman. I give the
facts just as they appear, having canvassed the whole subject, possibly a
little more than was good for me.

Republics may be