ntirely out of employment, and wholly dependent upon charity, swarmed in
every city. The soldiery, furious for their pay, which Alva had for many
months neglected to furnish, grew daily more insolent; the citizens,
maddened by outrage and hardened by despair, became more and more
obstinate in their resistance; while the Duke, rendered inflexible by
opposition and insane by wrath, regarded the ruin which he had caused
with a malignant spirit which had long ceased to be human. "The disease
is gnawing at our vitals," wrote Viglius; "everybody is suffering for the
want of the necessaries of life. Multitudes are in extreme and hopeless
poverty. My interest in the welfare of the commonwealth," he continued,
"induces me to send these accounts to Spain. For myself, I fear nothing.
Broken by sickness and acute physical suffering, I should leave life
without regret."

The aspect of the capital was that of a city stricken with the plague.
Articles of the most absolute necessity could not be obtained. It was
impossible to buy bread, or meat, or beer. The tyrant, beside himself
with rage at being thus braved in his very lair, privately sent for
Master Carl, the executioner. In order to exhibit an unexpected and
salutary example, he had determined to hang eighteen of the leading
tradesmen of the city in the doors of their own shops, with the least
possible delay and without the slightest form of trial.

Master Carl was ordered, on the very night of his interview with the
Duke, to prepare eighteen strong cords, and eighteen ladders twelve feet
in length. By this simple arrangement, Alva was disposed to make manifest
on the morrow, to the burghers of Brussels, that justice was thenceforth
to be carried to every man's door. He supposed that the spectacle of a
dozen and a half of butchers and bakers suspended in front of the shops
which they had refused to open, would give a more effective stimulus to
trade than any to be expected from argument or proclamation. The hangman
was making ready his cords and ladders; Don Frederic of Toledo was
closeted with President Viglius, who, somewhat against his will, was
aroused at midnight to draw the warrants for these impromptu executions;
Alva was waiting with grim impatience for the dawn upon which the show
was to be exhibited, when an unforeseen event suddenly arrested the
homely tragedy. In the night arrived the intelligence that the town of
Brill had been captured. The Duke, feeling the full gr