ourtesy to which his high degree and his eminent services entitled him.

The estates, even before receiving this letter, had, however, acted in
its spirit. They had addressed elaborate apologies and unlimited
professions to the Duke. They thanked him heartily for his achievements,
expressed unbounded regret at his departure, with sincere hopes for his
speedy return, and promised "eternal remembrance" of his heroic virtues.
They assured him, moreover, that should the first of the following March
arrive without bringing with it an honorable peace with his Catholic
Majesty, they should then feel themselves compelled to declare that the
King had forfeited his right to the sovereignty of these provinces. In
this case they concluded that, as the inhabitants would be then absolved
from their allegiance to the Spanish monarch, it would then be in their
power to treat with his Highness of Anjou concerning the sovereignty,
according to the contract already existing.

These assurances were ample, but the states, knowing the vanity of the
man, offered other inducements, some of which seemed sufficiently
puerile. They promised that "his statue, in copper, should be placed in
the public squares of Antwerp and Brussels, for the eternal admiration of
posterity," and that a "crown of olive-leaves should be presented to him
every year." The Duke--not inexorable to such courteous
solicitations--was willing to achieve both immortality and power by
continuing his friendly relations with the states, and he answered
accordingly in the most courteous terms. The result of this interchange
of civilities it will be soon our duty to narrate.

At the close of the year the Count of Bossu died, much to the regret of
the Prince of Orange, whose party--since his release from prison by
virtue of the Ghent treaty--he had warmly espoused. "We are in the
deepest distress in the world," wrote the Prince to his brother, three
days before the Count's death, "for the dangerous malady of M. de Bossu.
Certainly, the country has much to lose in his death, but I hope that God
will not so much afflict us." Yet the calumniators of the day did not
scruple to circulate, nor the royalist chroniclers to perpetuate, the
most senseless and infamous fables on the subject of this nobleman's
death. He died of poison, they said, administered to him "in oysters," by
command of the Prince of Orange, who had likewise made a point of
standing over him on his death-bed, for the e