with him on part of his employers would certainly be denied.

The miserable dupe was arrested, convicted, executed; and of course
the denial was duly made on the part of the archduke, La Motte, and
Assonleville. It was also announced, on behalf of Ernest, that some
one else, fraudulently impersonating his Highness, had lain in the bed
to which the culprit had been taken, and every one must hope that the
statement was a true one.

Enough has been given to show the peculiar school of statesmanship
according to the precepts of which the internal concerns and foreign
affairs of the obedient Netherlands were now administered. Poison and
pistols in the hands of obscure priests and deserters were relied on to
bring about great political triumphs, while the mutinous royal armies,
entrenched and defiant, were extorting capitulations from their own
generals and their own sovereign upon his own soil.

Such a record as this seems rather like the exaggeration of a diseased
fancy, seeking to pander to a corrupt public taste which feeds greedily
upon horrors; but, unfortunately, it is derived from the register of
high courts of justice, from diplomatic correspondence, and from the
confessions, without torture or hope of free pardon, of criminals. For a
crowned king and his high functionaries and generals to devote so much of
their time, their energies, and their money to the murder of brother and
sister sovereigns, and other illustrious personages, was not to make
after ages in love with the monarchic and aristocratic system, at least
as thus administered. Popular governments may be deficient in polish,
but a system resting for its chief support upon bribery and murder cannot
be considered lovely by any healthy mind. And this is one of the lessons
to be derived from the history of Philip II. and of the Holy League.