were to know. The government, weak at the commencement, was strong at the
close. The confederacy was broken and scattered. The Request, the beggar
banquets, the public preaching, the image-breaking, the Accord of August,
had been followed by reaction. Tournay had accepted its garrison. Egmont,
completely obedient to the crown, was compelling all the cities of
Flanders and Artois to receive soldiers sufficient to maintain implicit
obedience, and to extinguish all heretical demonstrations, so that the
Regent was at comparative leisure to effect the reduction of
Valenciennes.

This ancient city, in the province of Hainault, and on the frontier of
France, had been founded by the Emperor Valentinian, from whom it had
derived its name. Originally established by him as a city of refuge, it
had received the privilege of affording an asylum to debtors, to outlaws,
and even to murderers. This ancient right had been continued, under
certain modifications, even till the period with which we are now
occupied. Never, however, according to the government, had the right of
asylum, even in the wildest times, been so abused by the city before.
What were debtors, robbers, murderers, compared to heretics? yet these
worst enemies of their race swarmed in the rebellious city, practising
even now the foulest rites of Calvin, and obeying those most pestilential
of all preachers, Guido de Bray, and Peregrine de la Grange. The place
was the hot-bed of heresy and sedition, and it seemed to be agreed, as by
common accord, that the last struggle for what was called the new
religion, should take place beneath its walls.

Pleasantly situated in a fertile valley, provided with very strong
fortifications and very deep moats, Valenciennes, with the Scheld flowing
through its centre, and furnishing the means of laying the circumjacent
meadows under water, was considered in those days almost impregnable. The