all the seminaries of the recovered Provinces, in order that all the boys
and girls might grow up in thorough orthodoxy.

Yet this was the man from whom Sainte Aldegonde imagined the possibility
of obtaining a religious peace.

Ten days after the capitulation, Parma made his triumphal entrance into
Antwerp; but, according to his agreement, he spared the citizens the
presence of the Spanish and Italian soldiers, the military procession
being composed of the Germans and Walloons. Escorted by his body-guard,
and surrounded by a knot of magnates and veterans, among whom the Duke of
Arschot, the Prince of Chimay, the Counts Mansfeld, Egmont, and Aremberg,
were conspicuous, Alexander proceeded towards the captured city. He was
met at the Keyser Gate by a triumphal chariot of gorgeous workmanship,
in which sat the fair nymph Antwerpia, magnificently bedizened, and
accompanied by a group of beautiful maidens. Antwerpia welcomed the
conqueror with a kiss, recited a poem in his honour, and bestowed upon
him the keys of the city, one of which was in gold. This the Prince
immediately fastened to the chain around his neck, from which was
suspended the lamb of the golden fleece, with which order he had just
been, amid great pomp and ceremony, invested.

On the public square called the Mere, the Genoese merchants had erected
two rostral columns, each surmounted by a colossal image, representing
respectively Alexander of Macedon and Alexander of Parma. Before the
house of Portugal was an enormous phoenix, expanding her wings quite
across the street; while, in other parts of the town, the procession was
met by ships of war, elephants, dromedaries, whales, dragons, and other
triumphal phenomena. In the market-place were seven statues in copper,
personifying the seven planets, together with an eighth representing