eted a crime which, if it had
only entailed the loss of the troops under his command, and the
possession of Gravelines, would have been of no great historic
importance. It was, however, the first blow of a vast and carefully
sharpened treason, by which the country was soon to be cut in twain for
ever--the first in a series of bargains by which the noblest names of the
Netherlands were to be contaminated with bribery and fraud.

While the negotiations with La Notte were in progress, the government of
the states-general at Brussels had sent Saint Aldegonde to Arras. The
states of Artois, then assembled in that city, had made much difficulty
in acceding to an assessment of seven thousand florins laid upon them by
the central authority. The occasion was skillfully made use of by the
agents of the royal party to weaken the allegiance of the province, and
of its sister Walloon provinces, to the patriot cause. Saint Aldegonde
made his speech before the assembly, taking the ground boldly, that the
war was made for liberty of conscience and of fatherland, and that all
were bound, whether Catholic or Protestant, to contribute to the sacred
fund. The vote passed, but it was provided that a moiety of the
assessment should be paid by the ecclesiastical branch, and the
stipulation excited a tremendous uproar. The clerical bench regarded the
tax as both a robbery and an affront. "We came nearly to knife-playing,"
said the most distinguished priest in the assembly, "and if we had done
so, the ecclesiastics would not have been the first to cry enough." They
all withdrew in a rage, and held a private consultation upon "these
exorbitant and more than Turkish demands." John Sarrasin, Prior of Saint
Yaast, the keenest, boldest, and most indefatigable of the royal
partisans of that epoch, made them an artful harangue. This man--a better
politician than the other prior--was playing for a mitre too, and could
use his cards better. He was soon to become the most invaluable agent in
the great treason preparing. No one could, be more delicate, noiseless,
or unscrupulous, and he was soon recognized both by Governor-General and
King as the individual above all others to whom the re-establishment of
the royal authority over the Walloon provinces was owing. With the shoes
of swiftness on his feet, the coat of darkness on his back, and the
wishing purse in his hand, he sped silently and invisibly from one great
Malcontent chieftain to another, buying u