to the cautious patriotism of Orange. He was for smiting at once the
gigantic atrocity of the Spanish dominion, without waiting for the
forging of the weapons by which the blows were to be dealt. He forgot
that men and money were as necessary as wrath, in a contest with the most
tremendous despotism of the world. "They wish," he wrote to Count Louis,
"that we should meet these hungry wolves with remonstrances, using gentle
words, while they are burning and cutting off heads.--Be it so then. Let
us take the pen let them take the sword. For them deeds, for us words.
We shall weep, they will laugh. The Lord be praised for all; but I can
not write this without tears." This nervous language painted the
situation and the character of the writer.

As for Charles Mansfeld, he soon fell away from the league which he had
embraced originally with excessive ardor.

By the influence of the leaders many signatures were obtained during the
first two months of the year. The language of the document was such that
patriotic Catholics could sign it as honestly as Protestants. It
inveighed bitterly against the tyranny of "a heap of strangers," who,
influenced only by private avarice and ambition, were making use of an
affected zeal for the Catholic religion, to persuade the King into a
violation of his oaths. It denounced the refusal to mitigate the
severity of the edicts. It declared the inquisition, which it seemed
the intention of government to fix permanently upon them, as "iniquitous,
contrary to all laws, human and divine, surpassing the greatest barbarism
which was ever practised by tyrants, and as redounding to the dishonor of
God and to the total desolation of the country." The signers protested,
therefore, that "having a due regard to their duties as faithful vassals
of his Majesty, and especially, as noblemen--and in order not to be
deprived of their estates and their lives by those who, under pretext