When the troops first made their appearance before the walls, Champagny
was unwilling to grant them admittance. The addle-brained Oberstein had
confessed to him the enormous blunder which he had committed in his
midnight treaty, and at the same time ingenuously confessed his intention
of sending it to the winds. The enemy had extorted from his dulness or
his drunkenness a promise, which his mature and sober reason could not
consider binding. It is needless to say that Champagny rebuked him for
signing, and applauded him for breaking the treaty. At the same time its
ill effects were already seen in the dissensions which existed among the
German troops. Where all had been tampered with, and where the
commanders had set the example of infidelity, it would have been strange
if all had held firm. On the whole, however, Oberstein thought he could
answer for his own troops: Upon Van Ende's division, although the crafty
colonel dissembled his real intentions; very little reliance was placed.
Thus there was distraction within the walls. Among those whom the
burghers had been told to consider their defenders, there were probably.
many who were ready to join with their mortal foes at a moment's warning.
Under these circumstances, Champagny hesitated about admitting these
fresh troops from Brussels. He feared lest the Germans, who knew
themselves doubted, might consider themselves doomed. He trembled, lest
an irrepressible outbreak should occur within the walls, rendering the
immediate destruction of the city by the Spaniards from without
inevitable. Moreover, he thought it more desirable that this auxiliary
force should be disposed at different points outside, in order to
intercept the passage of the numerous bodies of Spaniards and other
mutineers, who from various quarters would soon be on their way to the
citadel. Havre, however, was so peremptory, and the burghers were so
importunate, that Champagny was obliged to recede from his opposition
before twenty-four hours had elapsed. Unwilling to take the
responsibility of a farther refusal, he admitted the troops through the