rowd promised safety to his person. To the steps of the Hotel de
Ville rode the duke, his face dark, menacing with suppressed wrath.[5]

As he dismounted, he turned towards a man whom he thought he saw
egging on a disturbance and struck him with his riding whip, saying,
"I know you." The man was quick enough to realise the value of the
duke's violence at that moment and cried, "Strike again," but the
Seigneur Groothuse, who had already tried to check Charles's anger and
to curb the popular turbulence, exclaimed, "For the love of God do
not strike again!" The wiser burgher at once understood the unstable
temper of the mob, which had been fairly civil to the duke up to this
moment. There were ugly murmurs to be heard that the blow would cost
him dear.

"Indeed," says the courtly Chastellain, "the mischief was so
imminent that God alone averted it, and there was not an archer
or noble or man so full of assurance that he did not tremble with
fear, nor one who would not have preferred to be in India for his
own safety. Especially were they in terror for their young prince,
who, they thought, was exposed to a dolorous death."

It was Groothuse alone who averted disaster:

"Do you not see that your life and ours hang on a silken thread?
Do you think you can coerce a rabble like this by threats and hard
words--a rabble who at this moment do not value you more than the
least of us? They are beside themselves, they have neither reason
nor understanding.[6]... If you are ready to die, I am not, except
in spite of myself. You must try quite a different method--appease
them by sweetness and save your house and your life.

"What could you do alone? How the gods would laugh! Your courage
is out of place here unless it enables you to calm yourself and
give an example to those poor sheep, wretched misled people whom
you must soothe. Go down in God's name. [They were within the town
hall.] Show yourself and you will make an impression by your good
sense and all will go well."

To this eminently sound advice the young duke yielded. He appeared on
a balcony or on the upper steps of the town hall and stood ready to
harangue his unruly and turbulent subjects. A moment sufficed to still
the turmoil and the silence showed a readiness to hear him speak.

Charles was not perfectly at ease in Flemish, but he was wise enough
to use that tongue. One trait of the Ghen