tain
portion of his promised reward in ready money. He was also especially
charged, in case he should be arrested, not to make a confession--as had
been done by those previously employed in such work--as all complicity
with him on part of his employers would certainly be denied.

The miserable dupe was arrested, convicted, executed; and of course the
denial was duly made on the part of the archduke, La Motte, and
Assonleville. It was also announced, on behalf of Ernest, that some one
else, fraudulently impersonating his Highness, had lain in the bed to
which the culprit had been taken, and every one must hope that the
statement was a true one.

Enough has been given to show the peculiar school of statesmanship
according to the precepts of which the internal concerns and foreign
affairs of the obedient Netherlands were now administered. Poison and
pistols in the hands of obscure priests and deserters were relied on to
bring about great political triumphs, while the mutinous royal armies,
entrenched and defiant, were extorting capitulations from their own
generals and their own sovereign upon his own soil.

Such a record as this seems rather like the exaggeration of a diseased
fancy, seeking to pander to a corrupt public taste which feeds greedily
upon horrors; but, unfortunately, it is derived from the register of high
courts of justice, from diplomatic correspondence, and from the
confessions, without torture or hope of free pardon, of criminals. For a
crowned king and his high functionaries and generals to devote so much of
their time, their energies, and their money to the murder of brother and
sister sovereigns, and other illustrious personages, was not to make
after ages in love with the monarchic and aristocratic system, at least
as thus administered. Popular governments may be deficient in polish, but
a system resting for its chief support upon bribery and murder cannot be
considered lovely by any healthy mind. And this is one of the lessons to
be derived from the history of Philip II. and of the Holy League.

But besides mutiny and assassination there were also some feeble attempts
at negotiation to characterize the Ernestian epoch at Brussels. The
subject hardly needs more than a passing allusion.

Two Flemish juris-consults, Otto Hertius and Jerome Comans, offered their
services to the archduke in the peacemaking department. Ernest accepted
the proposition,--although it was strongly opposed by Fuentes, who