ked, "Who is this Frau Barbara Blomberg?" or, as
she now signed herself, "Madame de Blomberg"?

The answer must have been: "My mother."

Oh, no, no, never!

It would have been cruel to expect this from him; never would she place
her beloved child, her pride, her joy, in so embarrassing a position.

Besides, though she could only watch him from a distance, thanks to his
generosity or his brother's, she could lead a pleasant life. To sun
herself in his glory, too, was sufficiently cheering, and must satisfy
her.

He spent three years at the University of Aleala, and nothing but good
news of him reached her. Then she received tidings which gave her special
joy, for one of the wishes she had formed in Landshut was fulfilled. He
had been made a Knight of the Golden Fleece, and how becoming the jewel
on the red ribbon must be to the youth of one-and-twenty! How many of her
acquaintances belonging to the partisans of the King and Spain came to
congratulate her upon it! Because John had become Spanish, and risen in
Spain to the position which she desired for him, she wished to become so,
and studied the Spanish language with the zeal and industry of a young
girl. She succeeded in gaining more and more knowledge of it, and,
finally, through intercourse with Spaniards, in mastering it completely.

At that time the prospects for her party were certainly gloomy; the
heretical agitation and the boldness of the rebellious enthusiasts for
independence and liberty surpassed all bounds.

The King therefore sent the Duke of Alba to the Netherlands to restore
order, and, with the twenty thousand men he commanded, make the
insurgents feel the resistless power of offended majesty and the angered
Church.

Barbara and her friends greeted the stern duke as a noble champion of the
faith, who was resolved to do his utmost. The new bishoprics, which by
Granvelle's advice had been established, the foreign soldiers, and the
Spanish Inquisition, which pursued the heretics with inexorable
harshness, had roused the populace to unprecedented turmoil, and induced
them to resist the leading nobles, who were indebted to the King for
great favours, to the intense wrath of these aristocrats and the
partisans of Spain.

Barbara, with all her party, had welcomed the new bishoprics as an
arrangement which promised many blessings, and the foreign troops seemed
to her necessary to maintain order in the rebellious Netherlands. The
cruelty of the Inquis