And with this petition the grandee of the obedient provinces shook the
dust from his shoes, and left his natal soil for ever. He died on the
11th December of the same year in Venice.

His son the Prince of Chimay, his brother, and son-inlaw, and the other
obedient nobles, soon accommodated themselves to the new administration,
much as they had been inclined to bluster at first about their
privileges. The governor soon reported that matters were proceeding
very, smoothly. There was a general return to the former docility now
that such a disciplinarian as Fuentes held the reins.

The opening scenes of the campaign between the Spanish governor and
France were, as usual, in Picardy. The Marquis of Varambon made a
demonstration in the neighbourhood of Dourlens--a fortified town on the
river Authie, lying in an open plain, very deep in that province--while
Fuentes took the field with eight thousand men, and laid siege to Le
Catelet. He had his eye, however, upon Ham. That important stronghold
was in the hands of a certain nobleman called De Gomeron, who had been
an energetic Leaguer, and was now disposed, for a handsome consideration,
to sell himself to the King of Spain. In the auction of governors and
generals then going on in every part of France it had been generally
found that Henry's money was more to be depended upon in the long run,
although Philip's bids were often very high, and, for a considerable
period, the payments regular. Gomeron's upset price for himself was
twenty-five thousand crowns in cash, and a pension of eight thousand a
year. Upon these terms he agreed to receive a Spanish garrison into the
town, and to cause the French in the citadel to be sworn into the service
of the Spanish king. Fuentes agreed to the bargain and paid the adroit
tradesman, who knew so well how to turn a penny for himself, a large