s, watered, by the winding Scheld, was well
fortified after the old manner, but it was especially defended and
dominated by a splendid pentagonal citadel built by Charles V. It was
filled with fine churches, among which the magnificent cathedral was
pre-eminent, and with many other stately edifices. The population was
thrifty, active, and turbulent, like that of all those Flemish and
Walloon cities which the spirit of mediaeval industry had warmed for a
time into vehement little republics.

But, as has already been depicted in these pages, the Celtic element had
been more apt to receive than consistent to retain the generous impress
which had once been stamped on all the Netherlands. The Walloon provinces
had fallen away from their Flemish sisters and seemed likely to accept a
permanent yoke, while in the territory of the united States, as John
Baptist Tassis was at that very moment pathetically observing in a
private letter to Philip, "with the coming up of a new generation
educated as heretics from childhood, who had never heard what the word
king means, it was likely to happen at last that the king's memory, being
wholly forgotten nothing would remain in the land but heresy alone." From
this sad fate Cambray had been saved. Gavre d'Inchy had seventeen years
before surrendered the city to the Duke of Alencon during that unlucky
personage's brief and base career in the Netherlands, all, that was left
of his visit being the semi-sovereignty which the notorious Balagny had
since that time enjoyed, in the archiepiscopal city. This personage, a
natural son of Monluc, Bishop of Valence, and nephew of the,
distinguished Marshal Monluci was one of the most fortunate and the most
ignoble of all the soldiers of fortune who had played their part at this
epoch in the Netherlands. A poor creature himself, he had a heroine for a
wife. Renee, the sister of Bussy d'Amboise, had vowed to unite herself to
a man who would avenge the assassination of her brother by the Count
Montsoreau? Balagny readily agreed to perform the deed, and accordingly
espoused the high-born dame, but it does not appear that he ever wreaked
her vengeance on the murderer. He had now governed Cambray until the
citizens and the whole countryside were galled and exhausted by his
grinding tyranny, his inordinate pride, and his infamous extortions. His
latest achievement had been to force upon his subjects a copper currency
bearing the nominal value of silver, with th