n beforehand with him, had got
his troops under arms, and now secured the rebellious detachment.
Meantime, the alarm had spread. Armed burghers came from every house, and
barricades were hastily thrown up across every one of the narrow streets
leading to the square. Every issue was closed. Not a man of Egmont's
adherents--if he indeed had adherents among the townsmen--dared to show
his face. The young traitor and his whole regiment, drawn up on the
Grande Place, were completely entrapped. He had not taken Brussels, but
assuredly Brussels had taken him. All day long he was kept in his
self-elected prison and pillory, bursting with rage and shame. His
soldiers, who were without meat or drink, became insolent and uproarious,
and he was doomed also to hear the bitter and well-merited taunts of the
towns-people. A thousand stinging gibes, suggested by his name and the
locality, were mercilessly launched upon him. He was asked if he came
thither to seek his father's head. He was reminded that the morrow was
the anniversary of that father's murder upon that very spot--by those
with whom the son would now make his treasonable peace. He was bidden to
tear up but a few stones from the pavement beneath his feet, that the
hero's blood might cry out against him from the very ground.

Tears of shame and fury sprang from the young man's eyes as he listened
to these biting sarcasms, but the night closed upon that memorable
square, and still the Count was a prisoner. Eleven years before, the
summer stars had looked down upon a more dense array of armed men within
that place. The preparations for the pompous and dramatic execution,
which on the morrow was to startle all Europe, had been carried out in
the midst of a hushed and overawed population; and now, on the very
anniversary of the midnight in which that scaffold had risen, should not
the grand spectre of the victim have started from the grave to chide his
traitorous son?

Thus for a whole day and night was the baffled conspirator compelled to
remain in the ignominious position which he had selected for himself. On
the morning of the 5th of June he was permitted to depart, by a somewhat
inexplicable indulgence, together with all his followers. He rode out of
the gate at early dawn, contemptible and crest-fallen, at the head of his
regiment of traitors, and shortly afterwards--pillaging and levying black
mail as he went--made his way to Montigny's quarters.

It might have seemed na