tates, urging them to join the league. "Especially should you do
so," she said, "on account of the reputation which you will thereby gain
for your affairs with the people who are under you, seeing you thus
sustained (besides the certainty which you have of our favour) by the
friendship of other confederated princes, and particularly by that of the
most Christian king."

On the 31st October the articles of agreement under which the republic
acceded to the new confederation were signed at the Hague. Of course it
was not the exact counterpart of the famous Catholic association. Madam
League, after struggling feebly for the past few years, a decrepit
beldame, was at last dead and buried. But there had been a time when she
was filled with exuberant and terrible life. She, at least, had known the
object of her creation, and never, so long as life was in her, had she
faltered in her dread purpose. To extirpate Protestantism, to murder
Protestants, to burn, hang, butcher, bury them alive, to dethrone every
Protestant sovereign in Europe, especially to assassinate the Queen of
England, the Prince of Orange, with all his race, and Henry of Navarre,
and to unite in the accomplishment of these simple purposes all the
powers of Christendom under the universal monarchy of Philip of
Spain--for all this, blood was shed in torrents, and the precious metals
of the "Indies" squandered as fast as the poor savages, who were thus
taking their first lessons in the doctrines of Jesus of Nazareth, could
dig it from the mines. For this America had been summoned, as it were by
almighty fiat, out of previous darkness, in order that it might furnish
money with which to massacre all the heretics of the earth. For this
great purpose was the sublime discovery of the Genoese sailor to be
turned to account. These aims were intelligible, and had in part been
attained. William of Orange had fallen, and a patent of nobility, with a
handsome fortune, had been bestowed upon his assassin. Elizabeth's life
had been frequently attempted. So had those of Henry, of Maurice, of
Olden-Barneveld. Divine providence might perhaps guide the hand of future
murderers with greater accuracy, for even if Madam League were dead, her
ghost still walked among the Jesuits and summoned them to complete the
crimes left yet unfinished.

But what was the design of the new confederacy? It was not a Protestant
league. Henry of Navarre could no longer be the chief of such an
associat