tumult, which extended through the city as the congregation poured
precipitately out of the Cathedral, to escape a band of destroying and
furious Calvinists. Yet when the shock had a little subsided, it was
discovered that a small urchin was the cause of the whole tumult. Having
been bathing in the Scheldt, he had returned by way of the church with a
couple of bladders under his arm. He had struck these against the door
of the Cathedral, partly to dry them, partly from a love of mischief.
Thus a great uproar, in the course of which it had been feared that
Toumay was to be sacked and drenched in blood, had been caused by a
little wanton boy who had been swimming on bladders.

This comedy preceded by a few days only the actual disaster. On the 22d
of August the news reached Tournay that the churches in Antwerp, Ghent,
and many other places, had been sacked. There was an instantaneous
movement towards imitating the example on the same evening. Pasquier de
la Barre, procureur-general of the city, succeeded by much entreaty in
tranquillizing the people for the night. The "guard of terror" was set,
and hopes were entertained that the storm might blow over. The
expectation, was vain. At daybreak next day, the mob swept upon the
churches and stripped them to the very walls. Pictures, statues; organs,
ornaments, chalices of silver and gold, reliquaries, albs, chasubles,
copes, ciboriea, crosses, chandeliers, lamps; censers, all of richest
material, glittering with pearls, rubies, and other precious stones, were
scattered in heaps of ruin upon the ground.

As the Spoilers burrowed among the ancient tombs, they performed, in one
or two instances, acts of startling posthumous justice. The embalmed
body of Duke Adolphus of Gueldres, last of the Egmonts, who had reigned
in that province, was dragged from its sepulchre and recognized.
Although it had been there for ninety years, it was as uncorrupted,