He was never idle. Audacious,
indefatigable, ubiquitous, he at least atoned by energy and brilliant
courage for his famous treason of the preceding year, while his striking
and now rapidly approaching doom upon the very scene of his present
labours, made him appear to have been building a magnificent though
fleeting monument to his own memory.

Sainte Aldegonde, shut up in Antwerp, and hampered by dissension within
and obstinate jealousy without the walls, did all in his power to
frustrate the enemy's enterprise and animate the patriots. Through the
whole of the autumn and early winter, he had urged the States of Holland
and Zeeland to make use of the long winter nights, when moonless and
stormy, to attempt the destruction of Parma's undertaking, but the fatal
influences already indicated were more efficient against Antwerp than
even the genius of Farnese; and nothing came of the burgomaster's
entreaties save desultory skirmishing and unsuccessful enterprises. An
especial misfortune happened in one of these midnight undertakings.
Teligny ventured forth in a row-barge, with scarcely any companions, to
notify the Zeelanders of a contemplated movement, in which their
co-operation was desired. It was proposed that the Antwerp troops should
make a fictitious demonstration upon Fort Ordam, while at the same moment
the States' troops from Fort Lillo should make an assault upon the forts
on Kowenstyn Dyke; and in this important enterprise the Zeeland vessels
were requested to assist. But the brave Teligny nearly forfeited his life
by his rashness, and his services were, for a long time, lost to the
cause of liberty. It had been better to send a less valuable officer upon
such hazardous yet subordinate service. The drip of his oars was heard in
the darkness. He was pursued by a number of armed barges, attacked,
wounded severely in the shoulder, and captured. He threw his letters
overboard, but they were fished out of the water, carried to Parma, and
deciphered, so that the projected attack upon the Kowenstyn was
discovered, and, of necessity, deferred. As for Teligny, he was taken, as
a most valuable prize, into the enemy's camp, and was soon afterwards
thrust into prison at Tournay, where he remained six years--one year
longer than the period which his illustrious father had been obliged to
consume in the infamous dungeon at Mons. Few disasters could have been
more keenly felt by the States than the loss of this brilliant and
d