condemning their city. Champagny, who had once covered himself with
glory by his heroic though unsuccessful efforts to save Antwerp from the
dreadful "Spanish fury" which had descended from that very citadel, was
now appointed governor of the town, and devoted himself to the
reconstruction of the hated fortress. "Champagny has particularly aided
me," wrote Parma, "with his rhetoric and clever management, and has
brought the broad council itself to propose that the citadel should be
rebuilt. It will therefore be done, as by the burghers themselves,
without your Majesty or myself appearing to desire it."

This was, in truth, a triumph of "rhetoric and clever management," nor
could a city well abase itself more completely, kneeling thus cheerfully
at its conqueror's feet, and requesting permission to put the yoke upon
its own neck. "The erection of the castle has thus been determined
upon," said Parma, "and I am supposed to know nothing of the resolution."

A little later he observed that they, were "working away most furiously
at the citadel, and that within a month it would be stronger than it ever
had been before."

The building went on, indeed, with astonishing celerity, the fortress
rising out of its ruins almost as rapidly, under the hands of the
royalists, as it had been demolished, but a few years before, by the
patriots. The old foundations still remained, and blocks of houses,
which had been constructed out of its ruins, were thrown down that the
materials might be again employed in its restoration.

The citizens, impoverished and wretched, humbly demanded that the expense
of building the citadel might be in part defrayed by the four hundred
thousand florins in which they had been mulcted by the capitulation.