to Wronne and Nivelles, an assassin, named Heist, a German, by
birth, but a French chevalier, following him secretly in his camp,
pledged to take his life for a large reward promised by Alva--an
enterprise not destined, however, to be successful. The soldiers flatly
refused to remain an hour longer in the field, or even to furnish an
escort for Count Louis, if, by chance, he could be brought out of the
town. The Prince was obliged to inform his brother of the desperate state
of his affairs, and to advise him to capitulate on the best terms which
he could make. With a heavy heart, he left the chivalrous Louis besieged
in the city which he had so gallantly captured, and took his way across
the Meuse towards the Rhine. A furious mutiny broke out among his troops.
His life was, with difficulty, saved from the brutal soldiery--infuriated
at his inability to pay them, except in the over-due securities of the
Holland cities--by the exertions of the officers who still regarded him
with veneration and affection. Crossing the Rhine at Orsoy, he disbanded
his army and betook himself, almost alone, to Holland.

Yet even in this hour of distress and defeat, the Prince seemed more
heroic than many a conqueror in his day of triumph. With all his hopes
blasted, with the whole fabric of his country's fortunes shattered by the
colossal crime of his royal ally, he never lost his confidence in himself
nor his unfaltering trust in God. All the cities which, but a few weeks
before, had so eagerly raised his standard, now fell off at once. He went
to Holland, the only province which remained true, and which still looked
up to him as its saviour, but he went thither expecting and prepared to
perish. "There I will make my sepulchre," was his simple and sublime
expression in a private letter to his brother.

He had advanced to the rescue of Louis, with city after city opening its
arms to receive him. He had expected to be joined on the march by
Coligny, at the head of a chosen army, and he was now obliged to leave
his brother to his fate, having the massacre of the Admiral and his
confederates substituted for their expected army of assistance, and with
every city and every province forsaking his cause as eagerly as they had
so lately embraced it. "It has pleased God," he said, "to take away every
hope which we could have founded upon man; the King has published that
the massacre was by his orders, and has forbidden all his subjects, upon
pain of