subject,
instructing the envoy to urge upon Alva the necessity of chastising those
rebels to the French crown. "If he tells you," continued Charles, "that
this is tacitly requiring him to put to death all the French prisoners
now in hand as well to cut in pieces every man in Mons, you will say to
him that this is exactly what he ought to do, and that he will be guilty
of a great wrong to Christianity if he does otherwise." Certainly, the
Duke, having been thus distinctly ordered, both by his own master and by
his Christian Majesty, to put every one of these Frenchmen to death, had
a sufficiency of royal warrant. Nevertheless, he was not able to execute
entirely these ferocious instructions. The prisoners already in his power
were not destined to escape, but the city of Mons, in his own language,
"proved to have sharper teeth than he supposed."

Mondoucet lost no time in placing before Alva the urgent necessity of
accomplishing the extensive and cold-blooded massacre thus proposed. "The
Duke has replied," wrote the envoy to his sovereign, "that he is
executing his prisoners every day, and that he has but a few left.
Nevertheless, for some reason which he does not mention, he is reserving
the principal noblemen and chiefs." He afterwards informed his master
that Genlis, Jumelles, and the other leaders, had engaged, if Alva would
grant them a reasonable ransom, to induce the French in Mons to leave the
city, but that the Duke, although his language was growing less
confident, still hoped to take the town by assault. "I have urged him,"
he added, "to put them all to death, assuring him that he would be
responsible for the consequences of a contrary course."--"Why does not
your Most Christian master," asked Alva, "order these Frenchmen in Mons
to come to him under oath to make no disturbance? Then my prisoners will
be at my discretion and I shall get my city."--"Because," answered the
envoy, "they will not trust his Most Christian Majesty, and will prefer
to die in Mons."--[Mondoucet to Charles IX., 15th September, 1572.]

This certainly was a most sensible reply, but it is instructive to
witness the cynicism with which the envoy accepts this position for his
master, while coldly recording the results of all these sanguinary
conversations.

Such was the condition of affairs when the Prince of Orange arrived at
Peronne, between Binche and the Duke of Alva's entrenchments. The
besieging army was rich in notabilities of elev