previously the treason of a less important functionary was to cause a
considerable but less lasting injury to the national party.

In Mechlin was a Carmelite friar, of audacious character and great
eloquence; a man who, "with his sweet, poisonous tongue, could ever
persuade the people to do his bidding." This dangerous monk, Peter
Lupus, or Peter Wolf, by name, had formed the design of restoring
Mechlin to the Prince of Parma, and of obtaining the bishopric of Namur
as the reward of his services. To this end he had obtained a complete
mastery over the intellect of the bold but unprincipled De Bours.
A correspondence was immediately opened between Parma and the governor,
and troops were secretly admitted into the city. The Prince of Orange,
in the name of the Archduke and the estates, in vain endeavoured to recal
the infatuated governor to his duty. In vain he conjured him, by letter
after letter, to be true to his own bright fame so nobly earned. An old
friend of De Bours, and like himself a Catholic, was also employed to
remonstrate with him. This gentleman, De Fromont by name, wrote him many
letters; but De Bours expressed his surprise that Fromont, whom he had
always considered a good Catholic and a virtuous gentleman, should wish
to force him into a connection with the Prince of Orange and his heretic
supporters. He protested that his mind was quite made up, and that he
had been guaranteed by Parma not only the post which he now held, but
even still farther advancement.

De Fromont reminded him, in reply, of the frequent revolutions of
fortune's wheel, and warned him that the advancement of which he boasted
would probably be an entire degradation. He bitterly recalled to the
remembrance of the new zealot for Romanism his former earnest efforts to
establish Calvinism. He reproached him, too, with having melted up the
silver images of the Mechlin churches, including even the renowned shrine