et, while the
stables and other offices in the rear extended to the city wall. A narrow
lane, opening out of Delft-street, ran along the side of the house and
court, in the direction of the ramparts. The house was a plain,
two-storied edifice of brick, with red-tiled roof, and had formerly been
a cloister dedicated to Saint Agatha, the last prior of which had been
hanged by the furious Lumey de la Merck.

The news of Anjou's death had been brought to Delft by a special
messenger from the French court. On Sunday morning, the 8th of July,
1584, the Prince of Orange, having read the despatches before leaving his
bed, caused the man who had brought them to be summoned, that he might
give some particular details by word of mouth concerning the last illness
of the Duke. The courier was accordingly admitted to the Prince's
bed-chamber, and proved to be one Francis Guion, as he called himself.
This man had, early in the spring, claimed and received the protection of
Orange, on the ground of being the son of a Protestant at Besancon, who
had suffered death for--his religion, and of his own ardent attachment to
the Reformed faith. A pious, psalm-singing, thoroughly Calvinistic youth
he seemed to be having a bible or a hymn-book under his arm whenever he
walked the street, and most exemplary in his attendance at sermon and
lecture. For, the rest, a singularly unobtrusive personage, twenty-seven
years of age, low of stature, meagre, mean-visaged, muddy complexioned,
and altogether a man of no account--quite insignificant in the eyes of
all who looked upon him. If there were one opinion in which the few who
had taken the trouble to think of the puny, somewhat shambling stranger
from Burgundy at all coincided, it was that he was inoffensive but quite
incapable of any important business. He seemed well educated, claimed to
be of respectable parentage and had considerable facility of speech, when
any person could be found who thought it worth while to listen to him;
but on the whole he attracted little attention.

Nevertheless, this insignificant frame locked up a desperate and daring
character; this mild and inoffensive nature had gone pregnant seven years
with a terrible crime, whose birth could not much longer be retarded.
Francis Guion, the Calvinist, son of a martyred Calvinist, was in reality
Balthazar Gerard, a fanatical Catholic, whose father and mother were
still living at Villefans in Burgundy. Before reaching man's estate, h