unfettered expression of the national will, wished the ordinance to be
laid before the people in their primary assemblies. The estates, however,
were opposed to this democratic proceeding. They represented that it had
been customary to consult; after the city magistracies, only the captains
of companies and the deans of guilds on matters of government. The
Prince, yielding the point, the captains of companies and deans of guilds
accordingly alone united with the aristocratic boards in ratifying the
instrument by which his authority over the two united provinces was
established. On the 4th of June this first union was solemnized.

Upon the 11th of July, the Prince formally accepted the government. He,
however, made an essential change in a very important clause of the
ordinance. In place of the words, the "Roman religion," he insisted that
the words, "religion at variance with the Gospel," should be substituted
in the article by which he was enjoined to prohibit the exercise of such
religion. This alteration rebuked the bigotry which had already grown out
of the successful resistance to bigotry, and left the door open for a
general religious toleration.

Early in this year the Prince had despatched Saint Aldegonde on a private
mission to the Elector Palatine. During some of his visits to that
potentate he had seen at Heidelberg the Princess Charlotte of Bourbon.
That lady was daughter of the Due de Montpensier, the most ardent of the
Catholic Princes of France, and the one who at the conferences of Bayonne
had been most indignant at the Queen Dowager's hesitation to unite
heartily with the schemes of Alva and Philip for the extermination of
the Huguenots. His daughter, a woman of beauty, intelligence, and virtue,
forced before the canonical age to take the religious vows, had been
placed in the convent of Joliarrs, of which she had become Abbess. Always
secretly inclined to the Reformed religion, she had fled secretly from
her cloister, in the year of horrors 1572, and had found refuge at the
court of the Elector Palatine, after which step her father refused to
receive her letters, to contribute a farthing to her support, or even to
acknowledge her claims upon him by a single line or message of affection.

Under these circumstances the outcast princess, who had arrived at the
years of maturity, might be considered her own mistress, and she was
neither morally nor legally bound, when her hand was sought in marriage
by