aid, "your mistress
means to be guided by the advice of persons who do not desire peace."
The envoys, thinking that Marie had been perfectly sincere and frank,
refused to credit ill of her. Then Louis showed them a private note, in
Marie's own hand, telling him that she would be guided solely by the
advice of the court party and of Hugonet and Humbercourt in particular,
and begging him to keep this secret from the envoys of the States.

Enraged and mortified by this scandalous duplicity the burgher envoys
returned hastily to Ghent. The duchess received them in solemn audience,
seated upon her throne and surrounded by her courtiers. With great show
of indignation she denied the allegations of the king. "Here is your own
letter," said the chief of the envoys, drawing it forth from his bosom.
Marie was overwhelmed with confusion, and knew not what to say. She
trembled even for her own safety, now that this royal personage, in
defiance of the comity of princes, had betrayed her to her own subjects.
The duplicity of which she had been guilty was not so reprehensible as
it seems to us; the blame of it rests more upon her advisers than upon
her, and she was but a weak girl, encompassed by selfish intriguers and
plotters who sought to rob her of that which she had been taught to
regard as her unquestioned right.

The most conspicuous of her counsellors, though not by any means the
ones solely responsible for this unfortunate letter, were Hugonet and
Humbercourt, who, feeling that the Ghenters would take vengeance upon
them, threw themselves into a monastery immediately after the fatal
audience, but were dragged out of the sanctuary that very night. Marie,
faithful to those who had been faithful to her, would gladly have saved
them, but upon the mere rumor that the prisoners would be allowed to
escape the Ghenters flew to arms, congregated in the Friday market
place, and, asserting their ancient right of permanent assembly in time
of danger, camped there day and night till the two envoys were tried and
executed. Marie might have claimed that the unhappy victims, being ducal
officers, should be delivered over to the Grand Council for trial; but
in view of the excited state of popular feeling even that was not to be
thought of. And when she nominated a commission in which thirty out of
thirty-six were citizens of Ghent, that too was insufficient assurance
that the accused would be convicted; the citizens would have the whole
affa