ther upon the great nobility and clergy nor on the rustic
population, but on the merchants and manufacturers, it was answered by
the President that it was not desirable to rob Saint Peter's altar in
order to build one to Saint Paul. It might have been simpler to suggest
that the consumer would pay the tax, supposing it were ever paid at all,
but the axiom was not so familiar three centuries ago as now.

Meantime, the report of the deputies to the assembly on their return to
their constituents had created the most intense excitement and alarm.
Petition after petition, report after report, poured in upon the
government. There was a cry of despair, and almost of defiance, which had
not been elicited by former agonies. To induce, however, a more favorable
disposition on the part of the Duke, the hundredth penny, once for all,
was conceded by the estates. The tenth and twentieth occasioned--severe
and protracted struggles, until the various assemblies of the patrimonial
provinces, one after another, exhausted, frightened, and hoping that no
serious effort would be made to collect the tax, consented, under certain
restrictions, to its imposition.--The principal conditions were a protest
against the legality of the proceeding, and the provision that the
consent of no province should be valid until that of all had been
obtained. Holland, too, was induced to give in its adhesion, although the
city of Amsterdam long withheld its consent; but the city and province of
Utrecht were inexorable. They offered a handsome sum in commutation,
increasing the sum first proposed from 70,000 to 200,000 florins, but
they resolutely refused to be saddled with this permanent tax. Their
stout resistance was destined to cost them dear. In the course of a few
months Alva, finding them still resolute in their refusal, quartered the
regiment of Lombardy upon them, and employed other coercive measures to
bring them to reason. The rude, insolent, unpaid and therefore
insubordinate soldiery were billeted in every house in the city, so that
the insults which the population were made to suffer by the intrusion of
these ruffians at their firesides would soon, it was thought, compel the
assent of the province to the tax. It was not so, however. The city and
the province remained stanch in their opposition. Accordingly, at the
close of the year (15th. December, 1569) the estates were summoned to
appear within fourteen days before the Blood Council. At the appo