dispirited heart; but for Egmont the world still smiled.
To abandon the pomp and affluence in which he had grown up to youth and
manhood; to part with all the thousand conveniences of life which alone
made it valuable to him, and all this to escape an evil which his
buoyant spirit regarded as remote, if not imaginary; no, that was not a
sacrifice which could be asked from Egmont. But had he even been less
given to indulgence than he was, with what heart could he have consigned
a princess, accustomed by uninterrupted prosperity to ease and comfort,
a wife who loved him as dearly as she was beloved, the children on whom
his soul hung in hope and fondness, to privations at the prospect of
which his own courage sank, and which a sublime philosophy alone can
enable sensuality to undergo. "You will never persuade me, Orange,"
said Egmont, "to see things in the gloomy light in which they appear to
thy mournful prudence. When I have succeeded in abolishing the public
preachings, and chastising the Iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels, and
restoring peace and order in the provinces, what can the king lay to my
charge? The king is good and just; I have claims upon his gratitude,
and I must not forget what I owe to myself." "Well, then," cried
Orange, indignantly and with bitter anguish, "trust, if you will, to
this royal gratitude; but a mournful presentiment tells me--and may
Heaven grant that I am deceived!--that you, Egmont, will be the bridge
by which the Spaniards will pass into our country to destroy it." After
these words, he drew him to his bosom, ardently clasping him in his
arms. Long, as though the sight was to serve for the remainder of his
life, did he keep his eyes fixed upon him; the tears fell; they saw each
other no more.

The very next day the Prince of Orange wrote his letter of resignation
to the regent, in which he assured her of his perpetual esteem, and once
again entreated her to put the best interpretation on his present step.
He then set off with his three brothers and his whole family for his own
town of Breda, where he remained only as long as was requisite to
arrange some private affairs. His eldest son, Prince Philip William,
was left behind at the University of Louvain, where he thought him
sufficiently secure under the protection of the privileges of Brabant
and the immunities of the academy; an imprudence which, if it was really
not designed, can hardly be reconciled with the just estimate which, i