soon as the secret purpose of Sainte Aldegonde became generally known.
The proposed capitulation, which great mobs had been for weeks long
savagely demanding at the hands of the burgomaster, was now ascribed to
the burgomaster's unblushing corruption. He had obviously, they thought,
been purchased by Spanish ducats to do what he had hitherto been so
steadily refusing. A certain Van Werne had gone from Antwerp into
Holland a few days before upon his own private affairs, with a safe-
conduct from Parma. Sainte Aldegonde had not communicated to him the
project then on foot, but he had permitted him to seek a secret interview
with Count Mansfeld. If that were granted, Van Werne was to hint that in
case the Provinces could promise themselves a religious peace it would be
possible, in the opinion of Sainte Aldegonde, to induce Holland and
Zealand and all the rest of the United Provinces, to return to their
obedience. Van Werne, on his return to Antwerp, divulged these secret
negotiations, and so put a stop to Sainte Aldegonde's scheme of going
alone to Parma. "This has given a bad suspicion to the people," wrote
the burgomaster to Richardot, "so much so that I fear to have trouble.
The broad council has been in session, but I don't know what has taken
place there, and I do not dare to ask."

Sainte Aldegonde's motive, as avowed by himself, for seeking a private
interview, was because he had received no answer to the main point in his
first letter, as to the proposition for a general accord. In order
therefore to make the deliberations more rapid, he had been disposed to
discuss that preliminary question in secret. "But now," said he to
Richardot, "as the affair had been too much divulged, as well by diverse
reports and writings sown about, very inopportunely, as by the arrival
of M. Van Werne, I have not found it practicable to set out upon my road,
without communication with the members of the government. This has been
done, however, not in the way of consultation, but as the announcement of