he world, became, as
by the waving of a wand, a field-marshal and commander-in-chief at a most
critical moment in history, in the most conspicuous position in
Christendom, and in a great war, now narrowed down to a single spot of
earth, on which the eyes of the world were fixed, and the daily accounts
from which were longed for with palpitating anxiety. What but failure and
disaster could be expected from such astounding policy? Every soldier in
the Catholic forces--from grizzled veterans of half a century who had
commanded armies and achieved victories when this dainty young Italian
was in his cradle, down to the simple musketeer or rider who had been
campaigning for his daily bread ever since he could carry a piece or
mount a horse was furious with discontent or outraged pride.

Very naturally too, it was said that the position of the archdukes had
become preposterous. It was obvious, notwithstanding the pilgrimages of
the Infanta to our Lady of Hall, to implore not only the fall of Ostend,
but the birth of a successor to their sovereignty, that her marriage
would for ever remain barren. Spain was already acting upon this theory,
it was said, for the contract with Spinola was made, not at Brussels, but
at Madrid, and a foreign army of Spaniards and Italians, under the
supreme command of a Genoese adventurer, was now to occupy indefinitely
that Flanders which had been proclaimed an independent nation, and duly
bequeathed by its deceased proprietor to his daughter.

Ambrose Spinola, son of Philip, Marquis of Venafri, and his wife,
Polyxena Grimaldi, was not appalled by the murmurs of hardly suppressed
anger or public criticism. A handsome, aristocratic personage, with an
intellectual, sad, but sympathetic face, fair hair and beard, and
imposing but attractive presence--the young volunteer, at the beginning
of October, made his first visit of inspection in the lines before
Ostend. After studying the situation of affairs very thoroughly, he
decided that the operations on the Gullet or eastern side, including
Bucquoy's dike, with Pompey Targone's perambulatory castles and floating
batteries, were of secondary importance. He doubted the probability of
closing up a harbour, now open to the whole world and protected by the
fleets of the first naval power of Europe, with wickerwork, sausages, and
bridges upon barrels. His attention was at once concentrated on the
western side, and he was satisfied that only by hard fighting an