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"Behold," cried others, "the man who shall give us liberty." "He brings us," cried the Lutherans, "the Confession of Augsburg!" "We don't want the Gueux now!" exclaimed others; "we have no more need of the troublesome journey to Brussels. He alone is everything to us!" Those who knew not what to say vented their extravagant joy in psalms, which they vociferously chanted as they moved along.
Leyden, Haarlem, and most of the other towns followed the example of the nobles in receiving these pusillanimous counsels with approbation. Amsterdam, however, proved that the spirit of the "Gueux" was not yet utterly extinct in Holland.
Noircarmes, with his army of Walloons, still lay before Valenciennes, which, in firm reliance on being relieved by the Gueux, obstinately refused to listen to all the representations of the regent, and rejected every idea of surrender. An order of the court had expressly forbidden the royalist general to press the siege until he should receive reinforcements from Germany.
Gloomy and morose, he went to bed, while the men who were called his fellow-conspirators were dining and making merry in the same house with himself: He had as little sympathy with the cry of "Vivent les gueux" as for that of "Vive le Roy."
All the confidential letters which had been exchanged between him and them were returned, and by this last step the breach between them was made public and irreparable. Egmont's secession, and the flight of the Prince of Orange, destroyed the last hope of the Protestants and dissolved the whole league of the Gueux.
About three hundred guests assembled; intoxication gave them courage, and their audacity rose with their numbers. Immediately they drank to one another under this name, and the cry "long live the Gueux!" was accompanied with a general shout of applause.
It was a terrible wound for Holland, and the Calvinist portion of Flanders lost by it their natural allies, the Huguenots of France. William retreated from Mons to the Rhine, and waited for events. Some of the Gueux was driven by a contrary wind into the port of Brille: and seeing no escape, and pushed by despair, took the city which was preparing to hang them.
He had never permitted the cry of "Vivent les gueux" at his own table, nor encouraged it in his presence any where else. Such were the leading features in these memorable cases of what was called high treason. Trial there was none.
With regard to his transactions at Tournay, he had, throughout them all, conformed himself to the instructions of Madame de Parma. As to the cry of "Vivent les gueux," he should not have cared at that moment if the populace had cried 'Vive Comte Horn', for his thoughts were then occupied with more substantial matters.
The other ships seemed to be suffering in the same way; first one mast and then another went. And now the Gueux were seen to be crowding round the ships, the masts and spars of which were one by one shot away. I observed, meantime, Captain Radford going about the decks, and speaking to the crew. Don Rodrigo did not see him.
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