lthough
up to that moment none knew of it in Brussels. Albert, having been
apprised that many Frenchmen had been arriving during the past few days,
and swarming about the hostelries of the city and suburbs, was at once
disposed to believe in the story. When Conde came to him, therefore, with
confirmation from his own letters, and demanding a detachment of the
body-guard in addition to the burgher militiamen already granted by the
magistrates, he made no difficulty granting the request. It was as if
there had been a threatened assault of the city, rather than the
attempted elopement of a young lady escorted by a handful of cavaliers.

The courtyard of the Nassau Palace was filled with cavalry sent by the
Archduke, while five hundred burgher guards sent by the magistrates were
drawn up around the gate. The noise and uproar, gaining at every moment
more mysterious meaning by the darkness of night, soon spread through the
city. The whole population was awake, and swarming through the streets.
Such a tumult had not for years been witnessed in Brussels, and the
rumour flew about and was generally believed that the King of France at
the head of an army was at the gates of the city determined to carry off
the Princess by force. But although the superfluous and very scandalous
explosion might have been prevented, there could be no doubt that the
stratagem had been defeated.

Nevertheless, the effrontery and ingenuity of de Coeuvres became now
sublime. Accompanied by his colleague, the resident minister, de Berny,
who was sure not to betray the secret because he had never known it--his
wife alone having been in the confidence of the Princess--he proceeded
straightway to the Archduke's palace, and, late in the night as it was,
insisted on an audience.

Here putting on his boldest face when admitted to the presence, he
complained loudly of the plot, of which he had just become aware,
contrived by the Prince of Conde to carry off his wife to Spain against
her will, by main force, and by assistance of Flemish nobles, archiducal
body-guard, and burgher militia.

It was all a plot of Conde, he said, to palliate still more his flight
from France. Every one knew that the Princess could not fly back to Paris
through the air. To take her out of a house filled with people, to pierce
or scale the walls of the city, to arrange her journey by ordinary means,
and to protect the whole route by stations of cavalry, reaching from
Brussels to t