The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1582-84 | Page 8

relied on themselves. Moreover, the French committed the great error of despising their enemy. Recollecting the ease with which the Spaniards had ravished the city, they believed that they had nothing to do but to enter and take possession. Instead of repressing their greediness, as the Spaniards had done, until they had overcome resistance, they dispersed almost immediately into by-streets, and entered warehouses to search for plunder. They seemed actuated by a fear that they should not have time to rifle the city before additional troops should be sent by Anjou to share in the spoil. They were less used to the sacking of Netherland cities than were the Spaniards, whom long practice had made perfect in the art of methodically butchering a population at first, before attention should be diverted to plundering, and supplementary outrages. At any rate, whatever the causes, it is certain that the panic, which upon such occasions generally decides the fate of the day, seized upon the invaders and not upon the invaded, almost from the very first. As soon as the marauders faltered in their purpose and wished to retreat, it was all over with them. Returning was worse than advance, and it was the almost inevitable result that hardly a man escaped death or capture.
The Duke retreated the same day in the direction of Denremonde, and on his way met with another misfortune, by which an additional number of his troops lost their lives. A dyke was cut by the Mechlin citizens to impede his march, and the swollen waters of the Dill, liberated and flowing across the country which he was to traverse, produced such an inundation, that at least a thousand of his followers were drowned.
As soon as he had established himself in a camp near Berghem, he opened a correspondence with the Prince of Orange, and with the authorities of Antwerp. His language was marked by wonderful effrontery. He found himself and soldiers suffering for want of food; he remembered that he had left much plate and valuable furniture in Antwerp; and he was therefore desirous that the citizens, whom he had so basely outraged, should at once send him supplies and restore his property. He also reclaimed the prisoners who still remained in the city, and to obtain all this he applied to the man whom he had bitterly deceived, and whose life would have been sacrificed by the Duke, had the enterprise succeeded.
It had been his intention to sack the city, to re-establish exclusively the Roman Catholic worship, to trample upon the constitution which he had so recently sworn to maintain, to deprive Orange, by force, of the Renversal by which the Duke recognized the Prince as sovereign of Holland; Zealand; and Utrecht, yet notwithstanding that his treason had- been enacted in broad daylight, and in a most deliberate manner, he had the audacity to ascribe the recent tragic occurrences to chance. He had the farther originality to speak of himself as an aggrieved person, who had rendered great services to the Netherlands, and who had only met with ingratitude in return. His envoys, Messieurs Landmater and Escolieres, despatched on the very day of the French Fury to the burgomasters and senate of Antwerp, were instructed to remind those magistrates that the Duke had repeatedly exposed his life in the cause of the Netherlands. The affronts, they were to add, which he had received, and the approaching ruin of the country, which he foresaw, had so altered his excellent nature, as to engender the present calamity, which he infinitely regretted. Nevertheless, the senate was to be assured that his affection for the commonwealth was still so strong, as to induce a desire on his part to be informed what course was now to be pursued with, regard to him. Information upon that important point was therefore to be requested, while at the same time the liberation of the prisoners at Antwerp, and the restaration of the Duke's furniture and papers, were to be urgently demanded.
Letters of similar, import were also despatched by the Duke to the states of the Union, while to the Prince of Orange; his application was brief but brazen. "You know well,--my cousin," said he "the just and frequent causes of offence which this people has given me. The insults which I, this morning experienced cut me so deeply to the heart that they are the only reasons of the misfortune which has happened today. Nevertheless, to those who desire my friendship I shall show equal friendship and affection. Herein I shall follow the counsel you have uniformly given me, since I know it comes from one who has always loved me. Therefore I beg that you will kindly bring it to pass, that I may obtain some decision, and that no injury may be