accustomed to say that he ate only to support life; and he rarely
finished a dinner without having risen three or four times from table to
attend to some public business which, in his opinion, ought not to be
deferred.

His previous connections in the Netherlands were of use to him, and he
knew how to turn them to immediate account. The great nobles, who had
been uniformly actuated by jealousy of the Prince of Orange, who had been
baffled in their intrigue with Matthias, whose half-blown designs upon
Anjou had already been nipped in the bud, were now peculiarly in a
position to listen to the wily tongue of Alexander Farnese. The
Montignys, the La Mottes, the Meluns, the Egmonts, the Aerschots, the
Havres, foiled and doubly foiled in all their small intrigues and their
base ambition, were ready to sacrifice their country to the man they
hated, and to the ancient religion which they thought that they loved.
The Malcontents ravaging the land of Hainault and threatening Ghent, the
"Paternoster Jacks" who were only waiting for a favorable opportunity and
a good bargain to make their peace with Spain, were the very instruments
which Parma most desired to use at this opening stage of his career. The
position of affairs was far more favorable for him than it had been for
Don John when he first succeeded to power. On the whole, there seemed
a bright prospect of success. It seemed quite possible that it would be
in Parma's power to reduce, at last, this chronic rebellion, and to
reestablish the absolute supremacy of Church and King. The pledges of
the Ghent treaty had been broken, while in the unions of Brussels which
had succeeded, the fatal religious cause had turned the instrument of
peace into a sword. The "religion-peace" which had been proclaimed at
Antwerp had hardly found favor anywhere. As the provinces, for an
instant, had seemingly got the better of their foe, they turned madly
upon each other, and the fires of religious discord, which had been