u there was much commotion. Lights and
flambeaux were glancing, loud voices, martial music, discharge of pistols
and even of artillery were heard together with the trampling of many
feet, but there was nothing much resembling the wild revelry or cheerful
mummery of that holiday season. A throng of the great nobles of Belgium
with drawn swords and menacing aspect were assembled in the chief
apartments, a detachment of the Archduke's mounted body-guard was
stationed in the courtyard, and five hundred halberdiers of the burgher
guilds kept watch and ward about the palace.

The Prince of Conde, a square-built, athletic young man of middle
stature, with regular features, but a sulky expression, deepened at this
moment into ferocity, was seen chasing the secretary of the French
resident minister out of the courtyard, thwacking him lustily about the
shoulders with his drawn sword, and threatening to kill him or any other
Frenchman on the spot, should he show himself in that palace. He was
heard shouting rather than speaking, in furious language against the
King, against Coeuvres, against Berny, and bitterly bewailing his
misfortunes, as if his wife were already in Paris instead of Brussels.

Upstairs in her own apartment which she had kept for some days on pretext
of illness sat the Princess Margaret, in company' of Madame de Berny,
wife of the French minister, and of the Marquis de Coeuvres, Henry's
special envoy, and a few other Frenchmen. She was passionately fond of
dancing. The adoring cardinal described her as marvellously graceful and
perfect in that accomplishment. She had begged her other adorer, the
Marquis Spinola, "with sweetest words," that she might remain a few days
longer in the Nassau Palace before removing to the Archduke's residence,
and that the great general, according to the custom in France and
Flanders, would be the one to present her with the violins. But Spinola,
knowing the artifice concealed beneath these "sweetest words," had
summoned up valour enough to resist her blandishments, and had refused a
second entertainment.

It was not, therefore, the disappointment at losing her ball that now
made the Princess sad. She and her companions saw that there had been a
catastrophe; a plot discovered. There was bitter disappointment and deep
dismay upon their faces. The plot had been an excellent one. De Coeuvres
had arranged it all, especially instigated thereto by the father of the
Princess acting in conc