ssed in the past seven months, that there was
nothing which the Harlemers could not do or dare. He feared lest they
should set fire to their city, and consume their houses, themselves, and
their children, to ashes together; and he was unwilling that the fruits
of his victory, purchased at such a vast expense, should be snatched from
his hand as he was about to gather them. A letter was accordingly, by his
order, sent to the magistracy and leading citizens, in the name of Count
Overstein, commander of the German forces in the besieging army. This
despatch invited a surrender at discretion, but contained the solemn
assurance that no punishment should be inflicted except upon those who,
in the judgment of the citizens themselves, had deserved it, and promised
ample forgiveness if the town should submit without further delay. At the
moment of sending this letter, Don Frederic was in possession of strict
orders from his father not to leave a man alive of the garrison,
excepting only the Germans, and to execute besides a large number of the
burghers. These commands he dared not disobey,--even if he had felt any
inclination to do so. In consequence of the semi-official letter of
Overstein, however, the city formally surrendered at discretion on the
12th July.

The great bell was tolled, and orders were issued that all arms in the
possession of the garrison or the inhabitants should be brought to the
town-house. The men were then ordered to assemble in the cloister of Zyl,
the women in the cathedral. On the same day, Don Frederic, accompanied by
Count Bossu and a numerous staff, rode into the city. The scene which met
his view might have moved a heart of stone. Everywhere was evidence of
the misery which had been so bravely endured during that seven months'
siege. The smouldering ruins of houses, which had been set on fire by
balls, the shattered fortifications, the felled trunks of trees, upturned
pavements, broken images and other materials for repairing gaps made by
the daily cannonade, strewn around in all directions, the skeletons of
unclean animals from which the flesh had been gnawed, the unburied bodies
of men and women who had fallen dead in the public thoroughfares--more
than all, the gaunt and emaciated forms of those who still survived, the
ghosts of their former, selves, all might have induced at least a doubt
whether the suffering inflicted already were not a sufficient punishment,
even for crimes so deep as heresy