seemed imprudent to
wait until all the regiments had formally accepted the mutiny, and
concentrated themselves into a single body.

At this juncture, on the last day of July, the Marquis off Havre, brother
to the Duke of Aerschot, arrived out of Spain. He was charged by the King
with conciliatory but unmeaning phrases to the estates. The occasion was
not a happy one. There never was a time when direct and vigorous action
had been more necessary. It was probably the King's desire then, as much
as it ever had been his desire at all, to make up the quarrel with his
provinces. He had been wearied with the policy which Alva had enforced,
and for which he endeavoured at that period to make the Duke appear
responsible. The barren clemency which the Grand Commander had been
instructed to affect, had deceived but few persons, and had produced but
small results. The King was, perhaps, really inclined at this juncture to
exercise clemency--that is to say he was willing to pardon his people for
having contended for their rights, provided they were now willing to
resign them for ever. So the Catholic religion and his own authority,
were exclusively and inviolably secured, he was willing to receive his
disobedient provinces into favor. To accomplish this end, however, he had
still no more fortunate conception than to take the advice of Hopper. A
soothing procrastination was the anodyne selected for the bitter pangs of
the body politic--a vague expression of royal benignity the styptic to be
applied to its mortal wounds. An interval of hesitation was to bridge
over the chasm between the provinces and their distant metropolis. "The
Marquis of Havre has been sent," said the King, "that he may expressly
witness to you of our good intentions, and of our desire, with the grace
of God, to bring about a pacification." Alas, it was well known whence
those pavements of good intentions had been taken, and whither they would
lead. They were not the material for a substantial road to
reconciliation. "His Majesty," said the Marquis; on delivering his report
to the State Council, "has long been pondering over all things necessary
to the peace of the land. His Majesty, like a very gracious and bountiful
Prince, has ever been disposed, in times past, to treat these, his
subjects, by the best and sweetest means." There being, however, room for
an opinion that so bountiful a prince might have discovered sweeter
means, by all this pondering, than to bur