The clerk of the court then read
the sentence amid a silence so profound that every syllable he uttered,
and, every sigh and ejaculation of the victim were distinctly heard in
the most remote corner of the square. Gosson then, exclaiming that he was
murdered without cause, knelt upon the scaffold. His head fell while an
angry imprecation was still upon his lips.

Several other persons of lesser note were hanged daring the week-among
others, Matthew Doucet, the truculent man of gingerbread, whose rage had
been so judiciously but so unsuccessfully directed against the Prior of
Saint Vaast. Captain Ambrose, too, did not live long to enjoy the price
of his treachery. He was arrested very soon afterwards by the states'
government in Antwerp, put to the torture, hanged and quartered. In
troublous times like those, when honest men found it difficult to keep
their heads upon their shoulders, rogues were apt to meet their deserts,
unless they had the advantage of lofty lineage and elevated position.

"Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema."

This municipal revolution and counter-revolution, obscure though they
seem, were in reality of very grave importance. This was the last blow
struck for freedom in the Walloon country. The failure of the movement
made that scission of the Netherlands certain, which has endured till our
days, for the influence of the ecclesiastics in the states of Artois and
Hainault, together with the military power of the Malcontent grandees,
whom Parma and John Sarrasin had purchased, could no longer be resisted.
The liberty of the Celtic provinces was sold, and a few high-born
traitors received the price. Before the end of the year (1578) Montigny
had signified to the Duke of Alencon that a prince who avowed himself too
poor to pay for soldiers was no master for him. The Baron, therefore,
came, to an understanding with La Motte and Sarrasin, acting for
Alexander Farnese, and received the command of the infantry in the
Walloon provinces, a merced of four thousand crowns a year, together with
as large a slice of La Motte's hundred thousand florins for himself and
soldiers, as that officer could be induced to part with.

Baron Capres, whom Sarrasin--being especially enjoined to purchase
him--had, in his own language, "sweated blood and water" to secure, at
last agreed to reconcile himself with the King's party upon condition of
receiving the government-general of Artois, together with the par