apacity and lawless
desperation of the army. But neither Gonzaga nor Nignio had much
opportunity of judging of the real cause of his cheerlessness; for,
independent of the engrossing duties of their several commands, the
leisure of Don John was entirely bestowed upon his nephew, Alexander
Farnese, who, only a few years his junior in age, was almost a
brother in affection.

To him alone were confided the growing cares of his charge--the
increasing perplexities of his mind. To both princes, the name of
Ulrica had become, by frequent repetition, a sacred word; and though
Don John had the comfort of knowing that her father, the Count de
Cergny, was unengaged in the action of Gembloux, his highness had
reason to fear that the regiment of Hainaulters under his command,
constituted the garrison of one or other of the frontier fortresses
of Brabant, to which it was now his duty to direct the conquering
arms of his captains.

The army of the States having taken refuge within the walls of
Antwerp, the royalists, instead of marching straight to Brussels,
according to general expectation, effected in the first instance the
reduction of Tirlemont, Louvain, D'Arschot, Sichem, and
Diest,--Nivelle, the capital of Walloon Brabant, next succumbed to
their arms--Maubeuge, Chimay, Barlaimont;--and, after a severe
struggle, the new and beautiful town of Philippeville.

But these heroic feats were not accomplished without a tremendous
carnage, and deeds of violence at which the soul sickened. At Sichem,
the indignation of the Burgundians against a body of French troops
which, after the battle of Gembloux, had pledged itself never again
to bear arms against Spain, caused them to have a hundred soldiers
strangled by night, and their bodies flung into the moat at the foot
of the citadel; after which the town was given up by Prince Alexander
to pillage and spoliation! Terrified by such an example, Diest and
Leeuw hastened to capitulate. And still, at every fresh conquest, and
while receiving day after day, and week after week, the submission of
fortresses, and capitulation of vanquished chiefs, the anxious
expectation entertained by Don John of an appeal to his clemency
accompanying the Venetian ring, was again and again disappointed!--

At times, his anxieties on Ulrica's account saddened him into utter
despondency. He felt convinced that mischance had overtaken her. All
his endeavours to ascertain the position of the Count de Cergny
havi