d been doing his best, at a momentous crisis,
to serve the government without violating its engagements, but he
declared himself to be neither theologian nor jurist, and incapable,
while suspected and unassisted, of performing a task which the most
learned doctors of the council would find impracticable. He would rather,
he bitterly exclaimed, endure a siege in any fortress by the Turks, than
be placed in such a position. He was doing all that he was capable of
doing, yet whatever he did was wrong. There was a great difference, he
said, between being in a place and talking about it at a distance.

In the middle of October he was recalled by the Duchess, whose letters
had been uniformly so ambiguous that he confessed he was quite unable to
divine their meaning. Before he left the city, he committed his most
unpardonable crime. Urged by the leaders of the reformed congregations to
permit their exercises in the Clothiers' Hall until their temples should
be finished, the Count accorded his consent provisionally, and subject to
revocation by the Regent, to whom the arrangement was immediately to be
communicated.

Horn departed, and the Reformers took instant possession of the hall. It
was found in a very dirty and disorderly condition, encumbered with
benches, scaffoldings, stakes, gibbets, and all the machinery used for
public executions upon the market-place. A vast body of men went to work
with a will; scrubbing, cleaning, whitewashing, and removing all the foul
lumber of the hall; singing in chorus, as they did so, the hymns of
Clement Marot. By dinner-time the place was ready. The pulpit and benches
for the congregation had taken the place of the gibbet timber. It is
difficult to comprehend that such work as this was a deadly crime.
Nevertheless, Horn, who was himself a sincere Catholic, had committed the
most mortal of all his offences against Philip and against God, by having
countenanced so flagitious a transaction.

The Admiral went to Brussels. Secretary de la Torre, a very second-rate
personage, was despatched to Tournay to convey the orders of the Regent.
Governor Moulbais, now in charge of affairs both civil and military, was
to prepare all things for the garrison, which was soon to be despatched
under Noircarmes. The Duchess had now arms in her hands, and her language
was bold. La Torre advised the Reformers to be wise "while the rod was
yet green and growing, lest it should be gathered for their backs; for it