ments,
it was to be hoped that God would have mercy upon his soul. The secretary
who copied the letter, took the liberty of adding, however, to this
paragraph the suggestion, that "if Montigny were really a heretic, the
devil, who always assists his children in such moments, would hardly have
failed him in his dying hour." Philip, displeased with this flippancy,
caused the passage to be erased. He even gave vent to his royal
indignation in a marginal note, to the effect that we should always
express favorable judgments concerning the dead--a pious sentiment always
dearer to writing masters than to historians. It seemed never to have
occurred however to this remarkable moralist, that it was quite as
reprehensible to strangle an innocent man as to speak ill of him after
his decease.

Thus perished Baron Montigny, four years after his arrival in Madrid as
Duchess Margaret's ambassador, and three years after the death of his
fellow-envoy Marquis Berghen. No apology is necessary for so detailed an
account of this dark and secret tragedy. The great transactions of a
reign are sometimes paltry things; great battles and great treaties,
after vast consumption of life and of breath, often leave the world where
they found it. The events which occupy many of the statelier pages of
history, and which have most lived in the mouths of men, frequently
contain but commonplace lessons of philosophy. It is perhaps otherwise
when, by the resuscitation of secret documents, over which the dust of
three centuries has gathered, we are enabled to study the internal
working of a system of perfect tyranny. Liberal institutions, republican
or constitutional governments, move in the daylight; we see their mode of
operation, feel the jar of their wheels, and are often needlessly alarmed
at their apparent tendencies. The reverse of the picture is not always so
easily attainable. When, therefore, we find a careful portrait of a
consummate tyrant, painted by his own hand, it is worth our while to
pause for a moment, that we may carefully peruse the lineaments.
Certainly, we shall afterwards not love liberty the less.

Towards the end of the year 1570, still another and a terrible misfortune
descended upon the Netherlands. It was now the hand of God which smote
the unhappy country, already so tortured by the cruelty of war. An
inundation, more tremendous than any which had yet been recorded in those
annals so prolific in such catastrophes, now swept th