dmiral and his
confederates substituted for their expected army of assistance, and with
every city and every province forsaking his cause as eagerly as they had
so lately embraced it. "It has pleased God," he said, "to take away every
hope which we could have founded upon man; the King has published that
the massacre was by his orders, and has forbidden all his subjects, upon
pain of death, to assist me; he has, moreover, sent succor to Alva. Had
it not been for this, we had been masters of the Duke, and should have
made him capitulate at our pleasure." Yet even then he was not cast down.

Nor was his political sagacity liable to impeachment by the extent to
which he had been thus deceived by the French court. "So far from being
reprehensible that I did not suspect such a crime," he said, "I should
rather be chargeable with malignity had I been capable of so sinister a
suspicion. 'Tis not an ordinary thing to conceal such enormous
deliberations under the plausible cover of a marriage festival."

Meanwhile, Count Louis lay confined to his couch with a burning fever.
His soldiers refused any longer to hold the city, now that the altered
intentions of Charles IX. were known and the forces of Orange withdrawn.
Alva offered the most honorable conditions, and it was therefore
impossible for the Count to make longer resistance. The city was so
important, and time was at that moment so valuable that the Duke was
willing to forego his vengeance upon the rebel whom he so cordially
detested, and to be satisfied with depriving, him of the prize which he
had seized with such audacity. "It would have afforded me sincere
pleasure," wrote the Duke, "over and above the benefit to God and your
Majesty, to have had the Count of Nassau in my power. I would overleap
every obstacle to seize him, such is the particular hatred which I bear
the man." Under, the circumstances, however, he acknowledged that the
result of the council of war could only be to grant liberal terms.

On the 19th September, accordingly, articles of capitulation were signed
between the distinguished De la None with three others on the one part,
and the Seigneur de Noircarmes and three others on the side of Spain. The
town was given over to Alva, but all the soldiers were to go out with
their weapons and property. Those of the townspeople who had borne arms
against his Majesty, and all who still held to the Reformed religion,
were to retire with the soldiery. The troops