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 up centurions, and captains, and
common soldiers; circumventing Orangists, Ghent democrats, Anjou
partisans; weaving a thousand intrigues, ventilating a hundred hostile
mines, and passing unharmed through the most serious dangers and the most
formidable obstacles. Eloquent, too, at a pinch, he always understood his
audience, and upon this occasion unsheathed the most incisive, if not the
most brilliant weapon which could be used in the debate. It was most
expensive to be patriotic, he said, while silver was to be saved, and
gold to be earned by being loyal. They ought to keep their money to
defend themselves, not give it to the Prince of Orange, who would only
put it into his private pocket on pretence of public necessities. The
Ruward would soon be slinking back to his lair, he observed, and leave
them all in the fangs of their enemies. Meantime, it was better to rush
into the embrace of a bountiful king, who was still holding forth his
arms to them. They were approaching a precipice, said the Prior; they
were entering a labyrinth; and not only was the "sempiternal loss of body
and soul impending over them, but their property was to be taken also,
and the cat to be thrown against their legs." By this sudden descent into
a very common proverbial expression, Sarrasin meant to intimate that they
were getting themselves into a difficult position, in which they were
sure to reap both danger and responsibility.

The harangue had much effect upon his hearers, who were now more than
ever determined to rebel against the government which they had so
recently accepted, preferring, in the words of the Prior, "to be
maltreated by their prince, rather than to be barbarously tyrannized over
by a heretic." So much anger had been excited in celestial minds by a
demand of thirty-five hundred florins.

Saint Aldegonde was entertained in the evening at a great banquet,
followed by a theological controversy, in which John Sarrasin complained
that "he had been attacked upon his own dunghill." Next day the
distin