Maurice and Lewis William were for
insisting on sterner conditions, but the States' deputies and members of
the council who were present, as usual, in camp urged the building of the
golden bridge. After all, a fortified city, the second in importance
after Groningen of all those regions, was the real prize contended for.
The garrison was meagre and much reduced during the siege. The
fortifications, of masonry and earthwork combined, were nearly as strong
as ever. Saint Barbara had done them but little damage, but the town
itself was in a sorry plight. Churches and houses were nearly all shot to
pieces, and the inhabitants had long been dwelling in the cellars. Two
hundred of the garrison remained, severely wounded, in the town; three
hundred and fifty had been killed, among others the young cousin of the
Nassaus, Count Lewis van den Berg. The remainder of the royalists marched
out, and were treated with courtesy by Maurice, who gave them an escort,
permitting the soldiers to retain their side-arms, and furnishing horses
to the governor.

In the besieging army five or six hundred had been killed and many
wounded, but not in numbers bearing the same proportion to the slain as
in modern battles.

The siege had lasted forty-four days. When it was over, and men came out
from the town to examine at leisure the prince's camp and his field of
operations, they were astounded at the amount of labor performed in so
short a time. The oldest campaigners confessed that they never before had
understood what a siege really was, and they began to conceive a higher
respect for the art of the engineer than they had ever done before. "Even
those who were wont to rail at science and labour," said one who was
present in the camp of Maurice, "declared that the siege would have been
a far more arduous undertaking had it not been for those two engineers,
Joost Matthes of Alost, and Jacob Kemp of Gorcum. It is high time to take
from soldiers the false notion that it is shameful to work with the
spade; an error which was long prevalent among the Netherlanders, and
still prevails among the French, to the great detriment of the king's
affairs, as may be seen in his sieges."

Certainly the result of Henry's recent campaign before Rouen had proved
sufficiently how much better it would have been for him had there been
some Dutch Joosts and Jacobs with their picks and shovels in his army at
that critical period. They might perhaps have baffled Parma