the following
year (1574), he was at last compelled to leave the provinces, which he
never again troubled with his presence. Some years afterwards, he died of
the bite of a mad dog; an end not inappropriate to a man of so rabid a
disposition.

While the Prince was thus steadily striving for a lofty and generous
purpose, he was, of course, represented by his implacable enemies as a
man playing a game which, unfortunately for himself, was a losing one.
"That poor prince," said Granvelle, "has been ill advised. I doubt now
whether he will ever be able to make his peace, and I think we shall
rather try to get rid of him and his brother as if they were Turks. The
marriage with the daughter of Maurice, 'unde mala et quia ipse talis',
and his brothers have done him much harm. So have Schwendi and German
intimacies. I saw it all very plainly, but he did not choose to believe
me."

Ill-starred, worse counselled William of Orange! Had he but taken the
friendly Cardinal's advice, kept his hand from German marriages and his
feet from conventicles--had he assisted his sovereign in burning heretics
and hunting rebels, it would not then have become necessary "to treat him
like a Turk." This is unquestionable. It is equally so that there would
have been one great lamp the less in that strait and difficult pathway
which leads to the temple of true glory.

The main reliance of Orange was upon the secret negotiations which his
brother Louis was then renewing with the French government. The Prince
had felt an almost insurmountable repugnance towards entertaining any
relation with that blood-stained court, since the massacre of Saint
Bartholomew. But a new face had recently been put upon that transaction.
Instead of glorying, in their crime, the King and his mother now assumed
a tone of compunction, and averred that the deed had been unpremeditated;
that it had been the result of a panic or an ecstasy of fear inspired by
the suddenly discovered designs of the Huguenots; and that, in the
instinct of self-preservation, the King, with his family and immediate
friends, had plunged into a crime which they now bitterly lamented. The
French envoys at the different courts of Europe were directed to impress
this view upon the minds of the monarchs to whom they were accredited. It
was certainly a very different instruction from that which they had at
first received. Their cue had originally been to claim a full meed of
praise and thanksgiving in b