. His mind was already expanding
beyond any dogmas of the age. The man whom his enemies stigmatized as
atheist and renegade, was really in favor of toleration, and therefore,
the more deeply criminal in the eyes of all religious parties.

Events, personal to himself, were rapidly to place him in a position from
which he might enter the combat with honor.

His character had already been attacked, his property threatened with
confiscation. His closest ties of family were now to be severed by the
hand of the tyrant. His eldest child, the Count de Buren, torn from his
protection, was to be carried into indefinite captivity in a foreign
land. It was a remarkable oversight, for a person of his sagacity, that,
upon his own departure from the provinces, he should leave his son, then
a boy of thirteen years, to pursue his studies at the college of Louvain.
Thus exposed to the power of the government, he was soon seized as a
hostage for the good behavior of the father. Granvelle appears to have
been the first to recommend the step in a secret letter to Philip, but
Alva scarcely needed prompting. Accordingly, upon the 13th of February,
1568, the Duke sent the Seignior de Chassy to Louvain, attended by four
officers and by twelve archers. He was furnished with a letter to the
Count de Buren, in which that young nobleman was requested to place
implicit confidence in the bearer of the despatch, and was informed that
the desire which his Majesty had to see him educated for his service, was
the cause of the communication which the Seignior de Chassy was about to
make.

That gentleman was, moreover, minutely instructed as to his method of
proceeding in this memorable case of kidnapping. He was to present the
letter to the young Count in presence of his tutor. He was to invite him
to Spain in the name of his Majesty. He was to assure him that his
Majesty's commands were solely with a view, to his own good, and that he
was not commissioned to arrest, but only to escort him. He was to allow
the Count to be accompanied only by two valets, two pages, a cook, and a
keeper of accounts. He was, however, to induce his tutor to accompany
him, at least to the Spanish frontier. He was to arrange that the second
day after his arrival at Louvain, the Count should set out for Antwerp,
where he was to lodge with Count Lodron, after which they were to proceed
to Flushing, whence they were to embark for Spain. At that city he was to
deliver the young P