. He was surrounded by councillors, who watched his every
motion, read all his correspondence, and assisted at all his conferences,
while the councillors were themselves narrowly watched by the commonalty.
These movements were, however, in general, marked by the most exemplary
order. Anarchy became a system of government; rebellion enacted and
enforced the strictest rules of discipline; theft, drunkenness, violence
to women, were severely punished. As soon as the mutiny broke forth, the
first object was to take possession of the nearest city, where the Eletto
was usually established in the town-house, and the soldiery quartered
upon the citizens. Nothing in the shape of food or lodging was too good
for these marauders. Men who had lived for years on camp rations--coarse
knaves who had held the plough till compelled to handle the musket, now
slept in fine linen, and demanded from the trembling burghers the
daintiest viands. They ate the land bare, like a swarm of locusts.
"Chickens and partridges," says the thrifty chronicler of Antwerp,
"capons and pheasants, hares and rabbits, two kinds of wines;--for
sauces, capers and olives, citrons and oranges, spices and sweetmeats;
wheaten bread for their dogs, and even wine, to wash the feet of their
horses;"--such was the entertainment demanded and obtained by the
mutinous troops. They were very willing both to enjoy the luxury of this
forage, and to induce the citizens, from weariness of affording compelled
hospitality, to submit to a taxation by which the military claims might
be liquidated.

A city thus occupied was at the mercy of a foreign soldiery, which had
renounced all authority but that of self-imposed laws. The King's
officers were degraded, perhaps murdered; while those chosen to supply
their places had only a nominal control. The Eletto, day by day,
proclaimed from the balcony of the town-house the latest rules and
regulations. If satisfactory, there was a clamor of applause; if
objectionable, they were rejected with a tempest of hisses, with
discharges of musketry; The Eletto did not govern: he was a dictator who
could not dictate, but could only register decrees. If too honest, too
firm, or too dull for his place, he was deprived of his office and
sometimes of his life. Another was chosen in his room, often to be
succeeded by a series of others, destined to the same fate. Such were the
main characteristics of those formidable mutinies, the result of the
unthrifti