should not
discover these relations. His motives were, of course, to prevent the
Prince from abandoning his designs, and from coming to make a disturbance
in France. The King, now that the deed was done, was most anxious to reap
all the fruits of his crime. "Now, M. de Mondoucet, it is necessary in
such affairs," he continued, "to have an eye to every possible
contingency. I know that this news will be most agreeable to the Duke of
Alva, for it is most favorable to his designs. At the same time, I don't
desire that he alone should gather the fruit. I don't choose that he
should, according to his excellent custom, conduct his affairs in such
wise as to throw the Prince of Orange upon my hands, besides sending back
to France Genlis and the other prisoners, as well as the French now shut
up in Mons."

This was a sufficiently plain hint, which Mondoucet could not well
misunderstand. "Observe the Duke's countenance carefully when you give
him this message," added the King, "and let me know his reply." In order,
however, that there might be no mistake about the matter, Charles wrote
again to his ambassador, five days afterwards, distinctly stating the
regret which he should feel if Alva should not take the city of Mons, or
if he should take it by composition. "Tell the Duke," said he, "that it
is most important for the service of his master and of God that those
Frenchmen and others in Mons should be cut in pieces." He wrote another
letter upon the name day, such was his anxiety upon the subject,
instructing the envoy to urge upon Alva the necessity of chastising those
rebels to the French crown. "If he tells you," continued Charles, "that
this is tacitly requiring him to put to death all the French prisoners
now in hand as well to cut in pieces every man in Mons, you will say to
him that this is exactly what he ought to do, and that he will be guilty
of a great wrong to Christianity if he does otherwise." Certainly, the
Duke, having been thus distinctly ordered, both by his own master and by
his Christian Majesty, to put every one of these Frenchmen to death, had
a sufficiency of royal warrant. Nevertheless, he was not able to execute
entirely these ferocious instructions. The prisoners already in his power
were not destined to escape, but the city of Mons, in his own language,
"proved to have sharper teeth than he supposed."

Mondoucet lost no time in placing before Alva the urgent necessity of
accomplishing the extensive