sprang over the breastwork, and surprised at last--in its sleep--the city
which had so long and vigorously defended itself. The burghers, startled
from their slumber, bewildered, unprepared, found themselves engaged in
unequal conflict with alert and savage foes. The battle, as usual when
Netherland towns were surprised by Philip's soldiers, soon changed to a
massacre. The townspeople rushed hither and thither, but there was
neither escape, nor means of resisting an enemy who now poured into the
town by thousands upon thousands. An indiscriminate slaughter succeeded:
Women, old men, and children, had all been combatants; and all,
therefore, had incurred the vengeance of the conquerors. A cry of agony
arose which was distinctly heard at the distance of a league. Mothers
took their infants in their arms, and threw themselves by hundreds into
the Meuse--and against women the blood-thirst of the assailants was
especially directed. Females who had fought daily in the trenches, who
had delved in mines and mustered on the battlements, had unsexed
themselves in the opinion of those whose comrades they had helped to
destroy. It was nothing that they had laid aside the weakness of women
in order to defend all that was holy and dear to them on earth. It was
sufficient that many a Spanish, Burgundian, or Italian mercenary had died
by their hands. Women were pursued from house to house, and hurled from
roof and window. They were hunted into the river; they were torn limb
from limb in the streets. Men and children fared no better; but the
heart sickens at the oft-repeated tale. Horrors, alas, were commonplaces
in the Netherlands. Cruelty too monstrous for description, too vast to
be believed by a mind not familiar with the outrages practised by the
soldiers of Spain and Italy upon their heretic fellow-creatures, were now
committed afresh in the streets of Maestricht.

On the first day four thousand men and women were slaughtered. The
massacre lasted two days longer; nor would it be an exaggerated estimate,