his countship might have spared him the trouble of making this long
journey in his old age. There were other observations in a similar strain
which might have well aroused the suspicion of any man not determined,
like Egmont, to continue blind and deaf. After a brief interval, however,
Alva seems to have commanded himself. He passed his arm lovingly over
that stately neck, which he had already devoted to the block, and the
Count having resolved beforehand to place himself, if possible, upon
amicable terms with the new Viceroy--the two rode along side by side in
friendly conversation, followed by the regiment of infantry and three
companies of light horse, which belonged to the Duke's immediate command.
Alva, still attended by Egmont, rode soon afterwards through the Louvain
gate into Brussels, where they separated for a season. Lodgings had been
taken for the Duke at the house of a certain Madame de Jasse, in the
neighborhood of Egmont's palace. Leaving here the principal portion of
his attendants, the Captain-General, without alighting, forthwith
proceeded to the palace to pay his respects to the Duchess of Parma.

For three days the Regent had been deliberating with her council as to
the propriety of declining any visit from the man whose presence she
justly considered a disgrace and an insult to herself. This being the
reward of her eight years' devotion to her brother's commands; to be
superseded by a subject, and one too who came to carry out a policy which
she had urgently deprecated, it could hardly be expected of the Emperor's
daughter that she should graciously submit to the indignity, and receive
her successor with a smiling countenance. In consequence, however, of the
submissive language with which the Duke had addressed her in his recent
communications, offering with true Castilian but empty courtesy, to place
his guards, his army, and himself at her feet, she had consented to
receive his visit with or without his attendants.

On his appearance in the court-yard, a scene of violent altercation and
almost of bloodshed took place between his body-guard and the archers of
the Regent's household, who were at last, with difficulty, persuaded to
allow the mercenaries of the hated Captain-General to pass. Presenting
himself at three o'clock in the afternoon, after these not very
satisfactory preliminaries, in the bedchamber of the Duchess, where it
was her habit to grant confidential audiences, he met, as might eas