person ever render him such services as hers had been. For nine years
she had enjoyed not a moment of repose. If the King had shown her but
little gratitude, she was consoled by the thought that she had satisfied
her God, herself, and the world. She had compromised her health, perhaps
her life, and now that she had pacified the country, now that the King
was more absolute, more powerful than ever before, another was sent to
enjoy the fruit of her labors and her sufferings.

The Duchess made no secret of her indignation at being thus superseded
and as she considered the matter, outraged. She openly avowed her
displeasure. She was at times almost beside herself with rage. There
was universal sympathy with her emotions, for all hated the Duke, and
shuddered at the arrival of the Spaniards. The day of doom for all the
crimes which had ever been committed in the course of ages, seemed now to
have dawned upon the Netherlands. The sword which had so long been
hanging over them, seemed now about to descend. Throughout the
provinces, there was but one feeling of cold and hopeless dismay.
Those who still saw a possibility of effecting their escape from the
fated land, swarmed across the frontier. All foreign merchants deserted
the great marts. The cities became as still as if the plague-banner had
been unfurled on every house-top.

Meantime the Captain-General proceeded methodically with his work.
He distributed his troops through Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and other
principal cities. As a measure of necessity and mark of the last
humiliation, he required the municipalities to transfer their keys to
his keeping. The magistrates of Ghent humbly remonstrated against the
indignity, and Egmont was imprudent enough to make himself the mouth-
piece of their remonstrance, which, it is needless to add, was
unsuccessful. Meantime his own day of reckoning had arrived.