izens, in
spite of their remonstrances, were compelled to contribute more than one
quarter. The sum of four hundred thousand florins was forced from the
burghers by a tax upon all hereditary property within the municipality.
Two thousand workmen were employed daily in the construction of this
important fortress, which was erected, as its position most plainly
manifested, not to protect, but to control the commercial capital of the
provinces. It stood at the edge of the city, only separated from its
walls by an open esplanade. It was the most perfect pentagon in Europe,
having one of its sides resting on the Scheld, two turned towards the
city, and two towards the open country. Five bastions, with walls of
hammered stone, connected by curtains of turf and masonry, surrounded by
walls measuring a league in circumference, and by an outer moat fed by
the Scheld, enclosed a spacious enceinte, where a little church with many
small lodging-houses, shaded by trees and shrubbery, nestled among the
bristling artillery, as if to mimic the appearance of a peaceful and
pastoral village. To four of the five bastions, the Captain-General, with
characteristic ostentation, gave his own names and titles. One was called
the Duke, the second Ferdinando, a third Toledo, a fourth Alva, while the
fifth was baptized with the name of the ill-fated engineer, Pacheco. The
Watergate was decorated with the escutcheon of Alva, surrounded by his
Golden Fleece collar, with its pendant lamb of God; a symbol of
blasphemous irony, which still remains upon the fortress, to recal the
image of the tyrant and murderer. Each bastion was honeycombed with
casemates and subterranean storehouses, and capable of containing within
its bowels a vast supply of provisions, munitions, and soldiers. Such was
the celebrated citadel built to tame the turbulent spirit of Antwerp, at
the cost of those whom it was to terrify and to insult.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Conde and Coligny
Furnished, in addition, with a force of two thousand prostitutes
He came as a conqueror not as a mediator
Hope deferred, suddenly changing to despair
Meantime the second civil war in France had broken out
Spendthrift of time, he was an economist of blood
The greatest crime, however, was to be rich
Time and myself are two
MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 15.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
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