s of his nature revealed
themselves; with crisp curling hair, surmounting a tall, expansive
forehead--full of benevolence, idealism, and quick perceptions; broad,
brown, melancholy eyes, overflowing with tenderness; a lean and haggard
cheek, a rugged Flemish nose; a thin flexible mouth; a slender moustache,
and a peaked and meagre beard; so appeared Sainte Aldegonde in the
forty-seventh year of his age, when he came to command in Antwerp.

Yet after all--many-sided, accomplished, courageous, energetic, as he
was--it may be doubted whether he was the man for the hour or the post.
He was too impressionable; he had too much of the temperament of genius.
Without being fickle, he had, besides his versatility of intellect, a
character which had much facility in turning; not, indeed, in the breeze
of self-interest, but because he seemed placed in so high and clear an
atmosphere of thought that he was often acted upon and swayed by subtle
and invisible influences. At any rate his conduct was sometimes
inexplicable. He had been strangely fascinated by the ignoble Duke of
Anjou, and, in the sequel, it will be found that he was destined to
experience other magnetic or magical impulses, which were once thought
suspicious, and have remained mysterious even to the present day.

He was imaginative. He was capable of broad and boundless hopes. He was
sometimes prone to deep despair. His nature was exquisitely tempered; too
fine and polished a blade to be wielded among those hydra-heads by which
he was, now surrounded; and for which the stunning sledgehammer of
arbitrary force was sometimes necessary.

He was perhaps deficient in that gift, which no training and no culture
can bestow, and which comes from above alone by birth-right divine--that
which men willingly call master, authority; the effluence which came so
naturally from the tranquil eyes of William the Silent.

Nevertheless, Sainte Aldegonde was prepared to do his best, and all his
best was to be tasked to the utmost. His position was rendered still more
difficult by the unruly nature of some of his coordinates.

"From the first day to the last," said one who lived in Antwerp during
the siege, "the mistakes committed in the city were incredible." It had
long been obvious that a siege was contemplated by Parma. A liberal sum
of money had been voted by the States-General, of which Holland and
Zeeland contributed a very large proportion (two hundred thousand
florins); the cit