which last personage was observed now to smile upon one party,
now to affect deep sympathy with the other--remained stationary; but the
Duke of Alencon rushed upon the stage, and caught the cow by the tail.
The Prince of Orange and Hans Casimir then appeared with a bucket, and
set themselves busily to milk her, when Alexander again seized the
halter. The cow gave a plunge, upset the pail, prostrated Casimir with
one kick and Orange with another, and then followed Parma with docility
as he led her back to Philip. This seems not very "admirable fooling,"
but it was highly relished by the polite Parisians of the sixteenth
century, and has been thought worthy of record by classical historians.

The Walloon accord was an auspicious prelude, in the eyes of the friends
of absolutism, to the negotiations which were opened in the month of May,
at Cologne. Before sketching, as rapidly as possible, those celebrated
but barren conferences, it is necessary, for the sake of unity in the
narrative, to cast a glance at certain synchronical events in different
parts of the Netherlands.

The success attained by the Catholic party in the Walloon negotiations
had caused a corresponding bitterness in the hearts of the Reformers
throughout the country. As usual, bitterness had begot bitterness;
intolerance engendered intolerance. On the 28th of May, 1579, as the
Catholics of Antwerp were celebrating the Ommegang--the same festival
which had been the exciting cause of the memorable tumults of the year
sixty-five--the irritation of the populace could not be repressed. The
mob rose in its wrath to put down these demonstrations--which, taken in
connection with recent events, seemed ill-timed and insolent--of a
religion whose votaries then formed but a small minority of the Antwerp
citizens. There was a great tumult. Two persons were killed. The Archduke
Matthias, who was himself in the Cathedral of Notre Dame assisting at the
ceremony, was in danger of his life. The well known cry of "paapen uit"
(out with the papists) resounded through the streets, and the priests and
monks were all hustled out of town amid a tempest of execrations. Orange
did his utmost to quell the mutiny, nor were his efforts fruitless--for
the uproar, although seditious and disgraceful, was hardly sanguinary.
Next day the Prince summoned the magistracy, the Monday council, the
guild officers, with all the chief municipal functionaries, and expressed
his indignation in decid