mentous enterprise, on the 10th
of May, at Carthagena. Thirty-seven galleys, under command of Prince
Andrea Doria, brought the principal part of the force to Genoa, the Duke
being delayed a few days at Nice by an attack of fever. On the 2d of
June, the army was mustered at Alexandria de Palla, and ordered to
rendezvous again at San Ambrosio at the foot of the Alps. It was then
directed to make its way over Mount Cenis and through Savoy; Burgundy,
and Lorraine, by a regularly arranged triple movement. The second
division was each night to encamp on the spot which had been occupied
upon the previous night by the vanguard, and the rear was to place itself
on the following night in the camp of the corps de bataille. Thus coiling
itself along almost in a single line by slow and serpentine windings,
with a deliberate, deadly, venomous purpose, this army, which was to be
the instrument of Philip's long deferred vengeance, stole through narrow
mountain pass and tangled forest. So close and intricate were many of the
defiles through which the journey led them that, had one tithe of the
treason which they came to punish, ever existed, save in the diseased
imagination of their monarch, not one man would have been left to tell
the tale. Egmont, had he really been the traitor and the conspirator he
was assumed to be, might have easily organized the means of cutting off
the troops before they could have effected their entrance into the
country which they had doomed to destruction. His military experience,
his qualifications for a daring stroke, his great popularity, and the
intense hatred entertained for Alva, would have furnished him with a
sufficient machinery for the purpose.

Twelve days' march carried the army through Burgundy, twelve more through
Lorraine. During the whole of the journey they were closely accompanied
by a force of cavalry and infantry, ordered upon this service by the King
of France, who, for fear of exciting a fresh Huguenot demonstration, had
refused the Spaniards a passage through his dominions. This reconnoitring
army kept pace with them like their shadow, and watched all their
movements. A force of six thousand Swiss, equally alarmed and uneasy at
the progress of the troops, hovered likewise about their flanks, without,
however, offering any impediment to their advance. Before the middle of
August they had reached Thionville, on the Luxemburg frontier, having on
the last day marched a distance of two league