Her Majesty likewise warned the Ghenters that their conduct would soon
compel her to abandon the country's cause altogether, and, in conclusion,
she requested, with characteristic thriftiness, to be immediately
furnished with a city bond for forty-five thousand pounds sterling.

Two days afterwards, envoys arrived from Brussels to remonstrate, in
their turn, with the sister city, and to save her, if possible, from the
madness which had seized upon her. They recalled to the memory of the
magistrates the frequent and wise counsels of the Prince of Orange. He
had declared that he knew of no means to avert the impending desolation
of the fatherland save union of all the provinces and obedience to the
general government. His own reputation, and the honor of his house, he
felt now to be at stake; for, by reason of the offices which he now held,
he had been ceaselessly calumniated as the author of all the crimes which
had been committed at Ghent. Against these calumnies he had avowed his
intention of publishing his defence. After thus citing the opinion of
the Prince, the envoys implored the magistrates to accept the religious
peace which he had proposed, and to liberate the prisoners as he had
demanded. For their own part, they declared that the inhabitants of
Brussels would never desert him; for, next to God, there was no one who
understood their cause so entirely, or who could point out the remedy so
intelligently.

Thus reasoned the envoys from the states-general and from Brussels, but
even while they were reasoning, a fresh tumult occurred at Ghent. The
people had been inflamed by demagogues, and by the insane howlings of
Peter Dathenus, the unfrocked monk of Poperingen, who had been the
servant and minister both of the Pope and of Orange, and who now hated
each with equal fervor. The populace, under these influences, rose in
its wrath upon the Catholics, smote all their images into fragments,