nd had formerly been
a cloister dedicated to St. Agatha, the last prior of which had been
hanged by the furious Lumey de la Marck.[1]

[1] Francis, Duke of Anjou, the French accomplice of Catherine de'
Medici in persecution of the Protestants, is elsewhere described
by Motley as "the most despicable personage who had ever entered
the Netherlands."

The news of Anjou's death had been brought to Delft by a special
messenger from the French court. On Sunday morning, July 8, 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
bedchamber, 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 he had formed the design of murdering the Pr