ity as Count
of Flanders was to be fully recognised, and all the dispossessed monks
and abbots to be restored to their property.

Accordingly, Champagny was rewarded for his exertions by being released
from prison and receiving the appointment of governor of the city: and,
after a very brief interval, about one-half of the population, the most
enterprising of its merchants and manufacturers, the most industrious of
its artizans, emigrated to Holland and Zeeland. The noble city of
Ghent--then as large as Paris, thoroughly surrounded with moats, and
fortified with bulwarks, ravelins, and counterscarps, constructed of
earth, during the previous two years, at great expense, and provided with
bread and meat, powder and shot, enough to last a year--was ignominiously
surrendered. The population, already a very reduced and slender one for
the great extent of the place and its former importance, had been
estimated at 70,000. The number of houses was 35,000, so that as the
inhabitants were soon farther reduced to one-half, there remained but one
individual to each house. On the other hand, the twenty-five monasteries
and convents in the town were repeopled--with how much advantage as a
set-off to the thousands of spinners and weavers who had wandered away,
and who in the flourishing days of Ghent had sent gangs of workmen
through the streets "whose tramp was like that of an army"--may be
sufficiently estimated by the result.

The fall of Brussels was deferred till March, and that of Mechlin (19th
July, 1585) and of Antwerp (19th August, 1585), till Midsummer of the
following year; but, the surrender of Ghent (10th March 1585)
foreshadowed the fate of Flanders and Brabant. Ostend and Sluys, however,
were still in the hands of the patriots, and with them the control of the
whole Flemish coast. The command of the sea was destined to remain for
centuries with the new republic.

The Prince of Parma, thus encouraged by the great success of his
intrigues, was determined to achieve still greater triumphs with his
arms, and steadily proceeded with his large design of closing the
Scheldt--and bringing about the fall of Antwerp. The details of that
siege-one of the most brilliant military operations of the age and one of
the most memorable in its results--will be given, as a connected whole,
in a subsequent series of chapters. For the present, it will be better
for the reader who wishes a clear view of European politics at this
epoch, an