ion before the tribunal, the same
preliminaries were observed, by way of aping the proceedings in courts of
justice. Alva sent the cart-loads of information which were daily brought
to him, but which neither he nor any other man had time to read, to be
disposed of by the board of councillors. It was the duty of the different
subalterns, who, as already stated, had no right of voting, to prepare
reports upon the cases. Nothing could be more summary. Information was
lodged against a man, or against a hundred men, in one document. The Duke
sent the papers to the council, and the inferior councillors reported at
once to Vargas. If the report concluded with a recommendation of death to
the man, or the hundred men in question, Vargas instantly approved it,
and execution was done upon the man, or the hundred men, within
forty-eight hours. If the report had any other conclusion, it was
immediately sent back for revision, and the reporters were overwhelmed
with reproaches by the President.

Such being the method of operation, it may be supposed that the
councillors were not allowed to slacken in their terrible industry. The
register of every city, village, and hamlet throughout the Netherlands
showed the daily lists of men, women, and children thus sacrificed at the
shrine of the demon who had obtained the mastery over this unhappy land.
It was not often that an individual was of sufficient importance to be
tried--if trial it could be called--by himself. It was found more
expeditious to send them in batches to the furnace. Thus, for example, on
the 4th of January, eighty-four inhabitants of Valenciennes were
condemned; on another day, ninety-five miscellaneous individuals, from
different places in Flanders; on another, forty-six inhabitants of
Malines; on another, thirty-five persons from different localities, and
so on.

The evening of Shrovetide, a favorite holiday in the Netherlands,
afforded an occasion for arresting and carrying off a vast number of
doomed individuals at a single swoop. It was correctly supposed that the
burghers, filled with wine and wassail, to which perhaps the persecution
under which they lived lent an additional and horrible stimulus, might be
easily taken from their beds in great numbers, and be delivered over at
once to the council. The plot was ingenious, the net was spread
accordingly. Many of the doomed were, however, luckily warned of the
terrible termination which was impending over their festi