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quested him to furnish, she should be obliged to succumb, she chose to disculpate herself in advance before God and Christian princes for the peace which she should be obliged to make. The Duke wrote to her in reply, that it was much better to have a kingdom ruined in preserving it for God and the king by war, than to have it kept entire without war, to the profit of the devil and of his followers. He was also reported on another occasion to have reminded her of the Spanish proverb--that the head of one salmon is worth those of a hundred frogs. The hint, if it were really given, was certainly destined to be acted upon. The Duke not only furnished Catherine with advice, but with the musketeers which she had solicited. Two thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse, under the Count of Aremberg, attended by a choice band of the Catholic nobility of the Netherlands, had joined the royal camp at Paris before the end of the year, to take their part in the brief hostilities by which the second treacherous peace was to be preceded. Meantime, Alva was not unmindful of the business which had served as a pretext in the arrest of the two Counts. The fortifications of the principal cities were pushed on with great rapidity. The memorable citadel of Antwerp in particular had already been commenced in October under the superintendence of the celebrated engineers, Pacheco and Gabriel de Cerbelloni. In a few months it was completed, at a cost of one million four hundred thousand florins, of which sum the citizens, in spite of their remonstrances, were compelled to contribute more than one quarter. The sum of four hundred thousand florins was forced from the burghers by a tax upon all hereditary property within the municipality. Two thousand workmen were employed daily in the construction of this important fortress, which was erected, as its position most plainly manifested, not to protect, but to control the commercial capital of the provinces. It stood at the edge of the city, only separated from its walls by an open esplanade. It was the most perfect pentagon in Europe, having one of its sides resting on the Scheld, two turned towards the city, and two towards the open country. Five bastions, with walls of hammered stone, connected by curtains of turf and masonry, surrounded by walls measuring a league in circumference, and by an outer moat fed by the Scheld, enclosed a spacious enceinte, where a little church with many small lodgin
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