Chapter IV: Part 4

Steen is not the only Dutch painter who, whether deservedly or not, won a reputation for drunkenness. At one time nearly all the artists passed the greater part of their day in the taverns, where they became famously drunk, fell to fighting, and whence they came out bruised and bleeding. In a poem upon painting by Karel van Mander, who was the first to write the history of the painters of the Netherlands, there occurs a passage directed against drunkenness and the habit of fighting, part of which runs as follows: "Be sober and live so that the unhappy proverb 'As debauched as a painter' may become 'As temperate as an artist.'" To mention a few among the most famous artists, Mieris was a notable winebibber, Van Goyen a drunkard, Franz Hals, the master of Brouwer, a winesack, Brouwer an incorrigible tippler; William Cornelis, and Hondecoeter were on the best terms with the bottle. Many of the humbler painters are said to have died intoxicated. Even in death the history of the Dutch painters presents a thousand incongruities. The great Rembrandt expired in misery almost without the knowledge of any; Hobbema died in the poor quarter of Amsterdam; Steen died in poverty; Brouwer died at a hospital; Andrew Both and Henry Verschuringh were drowned; Adrian Bloemaert met his death in a duel; Karel Fabritius was killed by the explosion of a powder-magazine; Johann Schotel died, brush in hand, of a stroke of apoplexy; Potter died of consumption; Lucas of Leyden was poisoned. So, what with shameful deaths, debauchery, and jealousy, one may say that a great part of the Dutch painters have had an unhappy fate.

In the gallery at Rotterdam there is a beautiful head by Rembrandt; a scene of brigands by Wouverman, a great painter of horses and battles; a landscape by Van Goyen, the painter of dead shores and leaden skies; a marine painting by Bakhuisen, the painter of storms; a painting by Berghem, the painter of smiling landscapes; one by Everdingen, the painter of waterfalls and forests; and other paintings belonging to the Italian and Flemish schools.

On leaving the museum I met a company of soldiers, the first Dutch soldiers I had seen. Their uniform was dark colored, without any showy ornaments, and they were all fair from first to last, and wore their hair long, and almost all of them had a peaceful, happy look, which seemed in strange contrast with the arms they bore. Rotterdam, a city of more than a hundred thousand inhabitants, has a garrison of three hundred soldiers! And it is said that Rotterdam has the name of being the most turbulent and unruly city in Holland! In fact, some time ago there was a popular demonstration against the municipality, which had no consequences but a few broken windows. But in a country like this, which runs by clockwork, it must have seemed, and did truly seem, a great event; the cavalry was sent from the Hague, the country was in commotion. One must not think, however, that this people is all sugar; the citizens of Rotterdam confess that "the holy rabble," as Carducci calls it, is stoutly licentious, as is the case in other towns of worse reputation; the lack of police is rather an incentive to license than a proof, as some might think, of public discipline.

* * * * *

Rotterdam, as I have already said, is a city neither artistic nor literary; on the contrary, it is one of the few Dutch cities that have not given birth to some great painter--an unproductiveness shared by the whole of Zealand. Erasmus, however, is not its only man of letters. In a little park that extends to the right of the town on the bank of the Meuse there is a marble statue raised by the inhabitants of Rotterdam to honor the poet Tollens, who was born at the end of last century and died a few years ago. This Tollens, whom some dare to call the Beranger of Holland, was (and in this alone he resembles Beranger) one of the most popular poets of the country--one of those poets of which there were so many in Holland, simple, moral, and fall of common sense, having, in fact, more good sense than inspiration; who treated poetry as if it were a business; who never wrote anything that could displease their prudent relatives and judicious friends; who sang of their good God and their good king, and expressed the tranquil and practical character of the people, always taking care to say things that were exact rather than great, and, above all, cultivating poetry in old age, and like prudent fathers of families not stealing a moment from the pursuit of their business. Like many other Dutch poets (who, however, had more genius and different natures), he had another profession besides that of an author. Vondel, for instance, was a hatmaker; Hooft was the governor of Muyden; Van Lennep was a fiscal lawyer; Gravenswaert was a state counsellor; Bogaers, an advocate; Beets, a shepherd; so Tollens also, besides being a man of letters, was an apothecary at Rotterdam, and passed every day, even in his old age, in his drug-store. He had a family and loved his children tenderly--so at least one would conclude from the different pieces of poetry he wrote on the appearance of their first, second, and third teeth. He wrote ballads and odes on familiar and patriotic subjects. Among these is the national hymn of Holland, a mediocre production which the people sing about the streets and the boys chant at school. There is a little poem, perhaps the best of his works, on the expedition which the Dutch sent to the Polar Sea toward the end of the sixteenth century. The people learn his poetry by heart, adore him, and prefer him as their most faithful interpreter and most affectionate friend. But, for all this, Tollens is not considered in Holland as a first-class poet, many do not even rank him in the second class, while not a few disdainfully refuse to give him the sacred laurels.

After all, if Rotterdam is not a centre of literature and art, she has as compensation an extraordinary number of philanthropic institutions, splendid clubs, and all the comforts and diversions of a city of wealth and refinement.

The observations that I have had occasion to make on the character and life of the inhabitants will be more to the purpose at the Hague. I will only mention that in Rotterdam, as in other Dutch cities, no one, in speaking of their country's affairs, showed the least national vanity. The expressions, "Isn't it beautiful?" "What do you think of that?"--which one hears every moment in other countries, are never heard in Holland, even when the inhabitants are speaking of things that are universally admired. Every time that I told a citizen of Rotterdam that I liked the town he made a gesture of surprise. In speaking of their commerce and institutions they never let a vain expression escape them, nor even a boastful or complacent word. They always speak of what they are going to do, and never of what they have done. One of the first questions put to me when I named my country was, "What about its finances?" As to their own country, I observed that they know all that it is useful to know, and very little that it is simply a pleasure to know. A hundred things, a hundred parts of the city, which I had observed when I had been twenty-four hours at Rotterdam, many of the citizens had never seen; which proves that they are not in the habit of rambling about and looking at everything.

When I took my leave my acquaintances filled my pockets with cigars, counselled me to eat good nourishing dinners, and gave me advice on the subject of economical travelling. They parted from me quietly. There was no clamorous "What a pity you are going!" "Write soon!" "Come back quickly!" "Don't forget us!" which rang in my ears on leaving Spain. Here there was nothing but a hearty shake of the hand, a look, and a simple good-bye.

On the morning when I left Rotterdam I saw in the streets through which I passed to get to the Delft railway-station a novel spectacle, purely Dutch--the cleaning of the houses, which takes place twice a week in the early morning hours. All the servants in the city, dressed in flowered lilac-colored wrappers, white caps, white aprons, white stockings, and white wooden shoes, and with their sleeves turned up, were busily washing the doors, the walls, and the windows. Some sat courageously on the window-sills while they washed the panes of the windows with sponges, turning their backs to the street with half their bodies outside; others were kneeling on the pavement cleaning the stones with rough cloths; others were standing in the middle of the street armed with syringes, squirts, and pumps, with long rubber tubes, like those used for watering gardens, and were sending against the second-floor windows streams of water which were pouring down again into the street; others were mopping the windows with sponges and rags tied to the tops of long bamboo canes; others were burnishing the door-knobs, rings, and door-plates; some were cleaning the staircases, some the furniture, which they had carried out of the houses. The pavements were blocked with buckets and pitchers, with jugs, watering-pots, and benches; water ran down the walls and down the street; jets of water were gushing out everywhere. It is a curious thing that while labor in Holland is so slow and easy in all its forms, this work presented an appearance altogether different. All those girls with glowing faces were bustling indoors and hurrying out again, rushing up stairs and down, tucking up their sleeves hastily, assuming bold acrobatic attitudes and undergoing dangerous contortions. They took no notice of those who passed by except when with jealous eyes it was necessary to keep the profane race away from the pavement and walls. In short, it was a furious rivalry of cleanliness, a sort of general ablution of the city, which had about it something childish and festive, and which made one fancy that it was some rite of an eccentric religion which ordered its followers to cleanse the town from a mysterious infection sent by malicious spirits.

DELFT.

On my way from Rotterdam to Delft I saw for the first time the plains of Holland.

The country is perfectly flat--a succession of green and flower-decked meadows, broken by long rows of willows and clumps of alders and poplars. Here and there appear the tops of steeples, the turning arms of windmills, straggling herds of large black and white cattle, and an occasional shepherd; then, for miles, only solitude. There is nothing to attract the eye, there is neither hill nor valley. From time to time the sail of a ship is seen in the distance, but as the vessel is moving on an invisible canal, it seems to be gliding over the grass of the meadows as it is hidden for a moment behind the trees and then reappears. The wan light lends a gentle, melancholy influence to the landscape, while a mist almost imperceptible makes all things appear distant. There is a sense of silence to the eye, a peace of outline and color, a repose in everything, so that the vision grows dim and the imagination sleeps.

Not far from Rotterdam the town of Schiedam comes into view, surrounded by very high windmills, which give it the appearance of a fortress crowned with turrets; and far away can be seen the towers of the village of Vlaardingen, one of the principal stations of the herring-fisheries.

Between Schiedam and Delft I observed the windmills with great attention. Dutch windmills do not at all resemble the decrepit mills I had seen in the previous year at La Mancha, which seemed to be extending their thin arms to implore the aid of heaven and earth. The Dutch mills are large, strong, and vigorous, and Don Quixote would certainly have hesitated before running atilt at them. Some are built of stone or bricks, and are round or octagonal like mediaeval towers; others are of wood, and look like boxes stuck on the summits of pyramids. Most of them are thatched. About midway between the roof and the ground they are encircled by a wooden platform. Their windows are hung with white curtains, their doors are painted green, and on each door is written the use which it serves. Besides drawing water, the windmills do a little of everything: they grind grain, pound rags, crumble lime, crush stones, saw wood, press olives, and pulverize tobacco. A windmill is as valuable as a farm, and it takes a considerable fortune to build one and provide it with colza, grain, flour, and oil to keep it working, and to sell its products. Consequently, in many places the riches of a proprietor are measured by the number of mills he owns; an inheritance is counted by mills, and they say of a girl that she has so many windmills as dowry, or, even better, so many steam-mills; and fortune-hunters, who are to be found everywhere, sue for the maiden's hand to marry the mill. These countless winged towers scattered through the country give the landscape a singular appearance; they animate the solitude. At night in the midst of the trees they have a fantastic appearance, and look like fabulous birds gazing at the sky. By day in the distance they look like enormous pieces of fireworks; they turn, stop, curb and slacken their speed, break the silence by their dull and monotonous tick-tack, and when by chance they catch fire--which not infrequently happens, especially in the case of flour-mills--they form a wheel of flame, a furious rain of burning meal, a whirlwind of smoke, a tumult, a dreadful magnificent brilliance that gives one the idea of an infernal vision.

In the railway-carriage, although it was full of people, I had no opportunity of speaking or of hearing a word spoken. The passengers were all middle-aged men with serious faces, who looked at each other in silence, puffing out great clouds of smoke at regular intervals as if they were measuring time by their cigars. When we arrived at Delft I greeted them as I passed out, and some of them responded by a slight movement of the lips.

"Delft," says Lodovico Guicciardini, "is named after a ditch, or rather the canal of water which leads from the Meuse, since in the vulgar tongue a ditch is generally called _delft_. It is distant two leagues from Rotterdam, and is a town truly great and most beautiful in every part, having goodly and noble edifices and wide streets, which are lively withal. It was founded by Godfrey, surnamed the Hunchback, duke of Lorraine, he who for the space of four years occupied the country of Holland."

Delft is the city of disaster. Toward the middle of the sixteenth century it was almost entirely destroyed by fire; in 1654 the explosion of a powder-magazine shattered more than two hundred houses; and in 1742 another catastrophe of the same kind occurred. Besides these calamities, William the Silent was assassinated there in the year 1584. Moreover, there followed the decline and almost the extinction of that industry which once was the glory and riches of the city, the manufacture of Delft ware. In this art at first the Dutch artisans imitated the shapes and designs of Chinese and Japanese china, and finally succeeded in doing admirable work by uniting the Dutch and Asiatic styles. Dutch pottery became famous throughout Northern Europe, and it is nowadays as much sought after by lovers of this art as the best Italian products.

At present Delft is not an industrial or commercial city, and its twenty-two thousand inhabitants live in profound peace. But it is one of the prettiest and most characteristic towns of Holland. The wide streets are traversed by canals shaded by double rows of trees. On either side are red, purple, and pink cottages with white pointing, which seem content in their cleanliness. At every crossway two or three corresponding bridges of stone or of wood, with white railings, meet each other; the only thing to be seen is some barge lying motionless and apparently enjoying the delight of idleness; there are few people stirring, the doors are closed, and all is still.

I took my way toward the new church, looking around to see if I could discover any of the famous storks' nests, but there were none visible. The tradition of the storks of Delft is still alive, and no traveller writes about this city without mentioning it. Guicciardini calls it "a memorable fact of such a nature that peradventure there is no record of a like event in ancient or modern times." The circumstance took place during the great fire which destroyed nearly the whole city. There were in Delft a countless number of storks' nests. It must be remembered that the stork is the favorite bird of Holland, the bird of good augury, like the swallow. Storks are much in demand, as they make war on toads and rats, and the peasants plant perches surmounted by large wooden disks to attract them to build their nests there. In some towns they are to be seen walking through the streets. Well, at Delft there were innumerable nests. When the fire began, on the 3d of May, the young storks were well grown, but they could not yet fly. When they saw the fire approaching, the parent storks tried to carry their little ones into a place of safety, but they were too heavy, and after every sort of desperate effort the poor birds, worn and terrified, had to abandon the attempt. They might yet have saved themselves by leaving the young to their fate, as human beings generally do under similar circumstances. But, instead, they remained on their nests, pressing their little ones round them, and shielding them with their wings, as though to delay their destruction for at least a moment. Thus they awaited their death, and were found lifeless in this attitude of love and devotion. Who knows whether during the horrible terror and panic of the fire the example of that sacrifice, the voluntary martyrdom of those poor mothers, may not have given courage to some weaker soul about to abandon those who had need of him?

In the great square, where stands the new church, I again saw some shops like those I had seen in Rotterdam, in which all the articles which can be strung together are hung up either outside the door or in the room, so forming wreaths, festoons, and curtains--of shoes, for example, or of earthen pots, watering-cans, baskets, and buckets--which dangle from the ceiling to the ground, and sometimes almost hide the floor. The shop signs are like those at Rotterdam--a bottle of beer hanging from a nail, a paint-brush, a box, a broom, and the customary huge heads with wide-open mouths.

The new church, founded toward the end of the fourteenth century, is to Holland what Westminster Abbey is to England. It is a large edifice, sombre without and bare within--a prison rather than a house of God. The tombs are at the end, behind the enclosure of the benches.

I had scarcely entered before I saw the splendid mausoleum of William the Silent, but the sexton stopped me before the very simple tomb of Hugh Grotius, the _prodigium Europae_, as the epitaph calls him, the great jurisconsult of the seventeenth century--that Grotius who wrote Latin verses at the age of nine, who composed Greek odes at eleven, who at fourteen indited philosophical theses, who three years later accompanied the illustrious Barneveldt in his embassy to Paris, where Henry IV. presented him to his court, saying, "Behold the miracle of Holland!" that Grotius who at eighteen years of age was illustrious as a poet, as a theologian, as a commentator, as an astronomer, who had written a poem on the town of Ostend which Casaubon translated into Greek measures and Malesherbes into French verse; that Grotius who when hardly twenty-four years old occupied the post of advocate-general of Holland and Zealand, and composed a celebrated treatise on the _Freedom of the Seas_; who at thirty years of age was an honorary councillor of Rotterdam. Afterward, when, as a partisan of Barneveldt, he was persecuted, condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and shut up in the castle of Loewestein, he wrote his treatise on the _Rights of Peace and War_, which for a long time was the code of all the publicists of Europe. He was rescued in a marvellous way by his wife, who managed to be carried into the prison inside a chest supposed to be full of books, and sent back the chest with her husband inside, while she remained in prison in his place. He was then sheltered by Louis XIII., was appointed ambassador to France by Christina of Sweden, and finally returned in triumph to his native land, and died at Rostock crowned with glory and a venerable old age.

The mausoleum of William the Silent is in the middle of the church. It is a little temple of black and white marble, heavy with ornament and supported by slender columns, in the midst of which rise four statues representing Liberty, Prudence, Justice, and Religion. Above the sarcophagus is a recumbent statue of the prince in white marble, and at his feet the effigy of the little dog that saved his life at Mechlin by barking one night, when he was sleeping under a tent, just as two Spaniards were advancing stealthily to kill him. At the foot of this statue rises a beautiful bronze figure, a Victory, with outspread wings, resting lightly on her left foot. At the opposite side of the little temple is another bronze statue representing William seated. He is clad in armor, with his head uncovered and his helmet at his feet. An inscription in Latin tells that this monument was consecrated by the States of Holland "to the eternal memory of that William of Nassau whom Philip II., the terror of Europe, feared, yet whom he could neither subdue nor overthrow, but whom he killed by execrable fraud." William's children are laid by his side, and all the princes of his dynasty are buried in the crypt under his tomb.

Before this monument even the most frivolous and careless visitor remains silent and thoughtful.

It is well to recall the tremendous struggle of which the hero lies in that tomb.

On one side was Philip II., on the other William of Orange. Philip II., shut up in the dull solitude of the Escurial, lived in the midst of an empire which included Spain, North and South Italy, Belgium, and Holland, and, in Africa, Oran, Tunis, the archipelagoes of the Cape Verde and Canary Islands; in Asia the Philippine Islands; and the Antilles, Mexico, and Peru in America. He was the husband of the queen of England, the nephew of the emperor of Germany, who obeyed him as if he were a vassal; he was the lord, one may say, of all Europe, for the neighboring states were all weakened by political and religious disorders; he had at his command the best disciplined soldiers in Europe, the greatest generals of the age, American gold, Flemish industries, Italian science, an army of spies scattered through all the courts--men chosen from all countries fanatically devoted to him, conscious or unconscious tools of his will. He was the most sagacious, most mysterious prince of his age; he had everything that enchains, corrupts, alarms, and attracts the world--arms, riches, glory, genius, religion. While every one else was bowing low before this formidable man, William of Orange stood erect.

This man, without a kingdom and without an army, was nevertheless more powerful than the king. Like him, he had been a disciple of Charles V., and had learned the art of elevating thrones and hurling them down; like him, he was cunning and inscrutable, and yet he divined the future with keener intellectual vision than Philip. Like his enemy, he had the power of reading men's souls, but he also had the ability to win their hearts. He had a good cause to uphold, but he was acquainted with all the artifices that are used to maintain bad causes. Philip II., who spied into every one's affairs, was spied on in his turn and had his purposes divined by William. The designs of the great king were discovered and thwarted before they were put into execution; mysterious hands ransacked his drawers and pockets and investigated his secret papers. William in Holland read the mind of Philip in the Escurial; he anticipated, hindered, and embroiled all his plots; he dug the ground from beneath his feet, provoked him, and then escaped, only to return before his eyes like a phantom which he saw and could not seize, which he seized and could not destroy. At last William died, but even when dead the victory was his, and the enemy who survived was defeated. Holland remained for a short time without a head, but the Spanish monarchy had received such a blow that it was not able to rise again.

In this wonderful struggle the figure of the Great King gradually dwindles until it entirely disappears, while that of William of Orange becomes greater and greater by slow degrees until it grows to be the most glorious figure of his age. From the day when, as a hostage to the king of France, he discovered Philip's design of establishing the Inquisition in the Netherlands he devoted himself to defend the liberty of his country, and throughout his life he never wavered for a moment on the road he had entered. The advantages of his noble birth, a regal fortune, peace, and the splendid life which by habit and nature were dear to him, all these he sacrificed to the cause; he was reduced to poverty and exiled, yet in both poverty and exile he constantly refused the offers of pardon and of favor that were made from many sides and in many ways by the enemy who hated and feared him. Surrounded by assassins, made the target of the most atrocious calumnies, accused of cowardice before the enemy, and charged with the assassination of a wife whom he adored, sometimes regarded with distrust, slandered, and attacked by the very people he was defending,--he bore it all patiently and in silence. He did not swerve from the straight course to the goal, facing infinite perils with quiet courage. He did not bend before his people nor did he flatter them; he did not permit himself to be led away by the passions of his country; it was he who always guided; he was always at the head, always the first. All gathered around him; he was the mind, the conscience, and the strength of the revolution, the hearth that burned and kept the warmth of life in his fatherland. Great by reason alike of his audacity and prudence, he continued upright in a time full of perjury and treachery; he remained gentle in the midst of violent men; his hands were spotless when all the courts of Europe were stained with blood. With an army collected at random, with feeble or uncertain allies, checked by internal discords between Lutherans and Calvinists, nobles and commoners, magistrates and the people, with no great general to aid him, he was obliged to combat the municipal spirit of the provinces, which would none of his authority and escaped from his control; yet he triumphed in a conflict which seemed beyond human strength. He wore out the Duke of Alva, Requesens, Don John of Austria, and Alexander Farnese. He overthrew the conspiracies of those foreign princes who wished to help his country in order to subdue it. He gained friends and obtained aid from every part of Europe, and, after achieving one of the noblest revolutions in history, he founded a free state in spite of an empire which was the terror of the universe.

This man, who in the eyes of the world was so terrible and so great, was an affectionate husband and father, a pleasant friend and companion, who loved merry social gatherings and banquets, and was an elegant and polite host. He was a man of learning, and spoke, besides his native language, French, German, Spanish, Latin, and Italian, and conversed in a scholarly manner on all subjects. Although called the Silent (rather because he kept to himself the secret discovered at the French court than from a habit of silence), he was one of the most eloquent men of his time. His manners were simple and his dress plain; he loved his people and was beloved by them. He walked about the streets of the cities bareheaded and alone, and chatted with workmen and fishermen, who offered him drink out of their glasses; he listened to their discourses, settled their quarrels, entered their homes to restore domestic concord. Every one called him "Father William," and, in fact, he was the father rather than a son of his country. The feeling of admiration and gratitude which still lives for him in the hearts of the Hollanders has all the intimacy and tenderness of filial affection; his reverend name is still in every mouth; his greatness, stripped of every ornament and veil, remains entire, spotless, and steadfast like his work.

After seeing the tomb of the Prince of Orange I went to look upon the place where he was assassinated.

In 1580, Philip II. published an edict in which he promised a reward of twenty-five thousand golden pieces and a title of nobility to the man who would assassinate the Prince of Orange. This infamous edict, which stimulated covetousness and fanaticism, caused crowds of assassins to gather from every side, who surrounded William under false names and with concealed weapons, awaiting their opportunity. A young man from Biscay, Jaureguy by name, a fervent Catholic, who had been promised the glory of martyrdom by a Dominican friar, made the first attempt. He prepared himself by prayer and fasting, went to Mass, took the communion, covered himself with sacred relics, entered the palace, and, drawing near to the prince in the attitude of one presenting a petition, fired a pistol at his head. The ball passed through the jaw, but the wound was not mortal. The Prince of Orange recovered. The assassin was slain in the act by sword and halberd thrusts, then quartered on the public square, and the parts were hung up on one of the gates of Antwerp, where they remained until the Duke of Parma took possession of the town, when the Jesuits collected them and presented them as relics to the faithful.

Shortly after this another plot against the life of the Prince was discovered. A French nobleman, an Italian, and a Walloon, who had followed him for some time with the intention of murdering him, were suspected and arrested. One of them killed himself in prison with a knife, another was strangled in France, and the third escaped, after he had confessed that the movements of all three had been directed by the Duke of Parma.

Meanwhile Philip's agents were overrunning the country instigating rogues to perpetrate this deed with promises of treasures in reward, while priests and monks were instigating fanatics to the same end by the assurance of help and reward from Heaven. Other assassins made the attempt. A Spaniard was discovered, arrested, and quartered at Antwerp; a rich trader called Hans Jansen was put to death at Flushing. Many offered their services to Prince Alexander Farnese and were encouraged by gifts of money. The Prince of Orange, who knew all this, felt a vague presentiment of his approaching death, and spoke of it to his intimate friends, but he refused to take any precautions to protect his life, and replied to all who gave him such counsel, "It is useless: God has numbered my years. Let it be according to His will. If there is any wretch who does not fear death, my life is in his power, however I may guard it."

Eight attempts were made upon his life before an assassin fired the fatal shot.

When the deed was at last committed, in 1584, four scoundrels, an Englishman, a Scotchman, a Frenchman, and a man of Lorraine, unknown to each other, were all awaiting at Delft their opportunity to assassinate him.

Besides these, there was a young conspirator, twenty-seven years of age, from Franche-Comte, a Catholic, who passed himself off as a Protestant, Guyon by name, the son of a certain Peter Guyon who was executed at Besancon for embracing Calvinism. This Guyon, whose real name was Balthazar Gerard, was believed to be a fugitive from the persecutions of the Catholics. He led an austere life and took part in all the services of the Evangelical Church, and in a short time acquired a reputation for especial piety. Saying that he had come to Delft to beg for the honor of serving the Prince of Orange, he was recommended and introduced by a Protestant clergyman: he inspired the Prince with confidence, and was sent by him to accompany Herr Van Schonewalle, the envoy of the States of Holland to the court of France. In a short time he returned to Delft, bringing to William the tidings of the death of the Duke of Anjou, and presented himself at the convent of St. Agatha, where the Prince was staying with his court. It was the second Sunday in July. William received him in his chamber, being in bed. They were alone. Balthazar Gerard was probably tempted to assassinate him at that moment, but he was unarmed and restrained himself. Disguising his impatience, he quietly answered all the questions he was asked. William gave him some money, told him to prepare to return to Paris, and ordered him to come back the next day to get his letters and passport. With the money he received from the Prince, Gerard bought two pistols from a soldier, who killed himself when he knew to what end they had been used, and the next day, the 10th of July, he again presented himself at the convent of St. Agatha. William, accompanied by several ladies and gentlemen of his family, was descending the staircase to dine in a room on the ground floor. On his arm was the Princess of Orange, his fourth wife, that gentle and unfortunate Louisa de Coligny, who had seen her father, the admiral, and her husband, Seigneur de Teligny, killed at her feet on the eve of St. Bartholomew. Balthazar stepped forward, stopped the Prince, and asked him to sign his passport. The Prince told him to return later, and entered the dining-room. No shade of suspicion had passed through his mind. Louisa de Coligny, however, grown cautious and suspicious by her misfortunes, became anxious. That pale man, wrapped in a long mantle, had a sinister look; his voice sounded unnatural and his face was convulsed. During dinner she confided her suspicions to William, and asked him who that man was "who had the wickedest face she had ever seen." The Prince smiled, told her it was Guyon, reassured her, and was as gay as ever during the dinner. When he had finished he quietly left the room to go up stairs to his apartments. Gerard was waiting for him at a dark turning near the staircase, hidden in the shadow of a door. As soon as he saw the Prince approaching he advanced, and leaped upon him just as he was placing his foot on the second step. He fired his pistol, which was loaded with three bullets, straight at the Prince's breast, and fled. William staggered and fell into the arms of an equerry. All crowded round. "I am wounded," said William in a feeble voice.... "God have mercy on me and on my poor people!" He was all covered with blood. His sister, Catherine of Schwartzburg, asked, "Dost thou commend thy soul to Jesus Christ?" He answered, in a whisper, "I do." It was his last word. They placed him on one of the steps and spoke to him, but he was no longer conscious. They then bore him into a room near by, where he died.

Gerard had crossed the stables, had fled from the convent, and reached the ramparts of the town, from which he hoped to leap into the moat and swim across to the opposite bank, where a horse ready saddled was awaiting him. But in his flight he let fall his hat and a pistol. A servant and a halberdier in the Prince's service, seeing these traces, rushed after him. Just as he was in the act of jumping he stumbled, and his two pursuers overtook and seized him. "Infernal traitor!" they cried. "I am no traitor," he answered calmly; "I am a faithful servant of my master."--"Of what master?" they asked. "Of my lord and master the King of Spain," answered Gerard. By this time other halberdiers and pages had come up. They dragged him into the town, beating him with their fists and with the hilts of their swords. The wretch, thinking from the words of the crowd that the Prince was not dead, exclaimed with an evil composure, "Cursed be the hand whose blow has failed!"

This deplorable peace of mind did not desert him for a moment. When brought before the judges, during the long examination in the cell where he was thrown laden with chains, he still maintained the same remarkable tranquillity. He bore the torments to which he was condemned without letting a cry escape him. Between the various tortures to which he was subjected, while the officers were resting, he conversed quietly and in a modest manner. While they were lacerating him every now and then he raised his bloody head from the rack and said, "Ecce homo." Several times he thanked the judges for the nourishment he had received, and wrote his confessions with his own hand.

He was born at Villefranche in the department of Burgundy, and studied law with a solicitor at Dole, and it was there that he for the first time manifested his wish to kill William. Planting a dagger in a door, he said, "Thus would I thrust a sword into the breast of the Prince of Orange!" Three years later, hearing of the proclamation of Philip II., he went to Luxembourg, intending to assassinate the Prince, but was stopped by the false report of his death which had been spread after Jaurequy's attempted assassination. Soon after, learning that William still lived, he renewed his design, and went to Mechlin to seek counsel from the Jesuits, who encouraged him, promising him a martyr's crown if he lost his life in the enterprise. He then went to Tournay, and presented himself to Alexander Farnese, who confirmed the promises of King Philip. He was approved and encouraged by the confidence of the Prince and by the priests; he fortified himself by reading the Bible, by fasting and prayer, and then, full of religious exaltation, dreaming of angels and of Paradise, he left for Delft, and completed his "duty as a good Catholic and faithful subject."

He repeated his confessions several times to the judges, without one word of remorse or penitence. On the contrary, he boasted of his crime, and said he was a new David, who had overthrown a new Goliath; he declared that if he had not already killed the Prince of Orange, he should still wish to do the deed. His courage, his calmness, his contempt of life, his profound belief that he had accomplished a holy mission and would die a glorious death, dismayed his judges; they thought he must be possessed by the devil. They made inquiries, they questioned him, but he always gave the same answer that his conversation was with God alone.

He was sentenced on the 14th of July. His punishment has been called a crime against the memory of the great man whose death it was intended to avenge--a sentence to turn faint any one who had not superhuman strength.

The assassin was condemned to have his hand enclosed and seared in a tube of red-hot iron, to have his arms, legs, and thighs torn to pieces with burning pincers, his bowels to be quartered, his heart to be torn out and thrown into his face, his head to be dissevered from his trunk and placed on a pike, his body to be cut in four pieces, and every piece to be hung on a gibbet over one of the principal gates of the city.

On hearing the enumeration of these horrible tortures the miserable wretch did not flinch; he showed no sign of terror, sorrow, or surprise. He opened his coat, bared his breast, and, fixing his dauntless eyes on his judges, he repeated with a steady voice his customary words, "Ecce homo!"

Was this man only a fanatic, as many believed, or a monster of wickedness, as others held, or was he both of these inspired by a boundless ambition?

On the next day the sentence was carried into effect. The preparations for the execution were made before his eyes; he regarded them with indifference. The executioner's assistant began by pounding into pieces the pistol with which he had perpetrated the crime. At the first blow the head of the hammer fell off and struck another assistant on the ear. The crowd laughed, and Gerard laughed too. When he mounted the gallows his body was already horrible to behold. He was silent while his hand crackled and smoked in the red-hot tube; during the time when the red-hot tongs were tearing his flesh he uttered no cry; when the knife penetrated into his entrails he bowed his head, murmured a few incomprehensible words, and expired.

The death of the Prince of Orange filled the country with consternation. His body lay in state for a month, and the people gathered round his last bed kneeling and weeping. The funeral was worthy of a king: there were present the States General of the United Provinces, the Council of State, and the Estates of Holland, the magistrates, the clergy, and the princes of the house of Nassau. Twelve noblemen bore the bier, four great nobles held the cords of the pall, and the Prince's horse followed splendidly caparisoned and led by his equerry. In the midst of the train of counts and barons there was seen a young man, eighteen years of age, who was destined to inherit the glorious legacy of the dead, to humble the Spanish arms, and to compel Spain to sue for a truce and to recognize the independence of the Netherlands. That young man was Maurice of Orange, the son of William, on whom the Estates of Holland a short time after the death of his father conferred the dignity of Stadtholder, and to whom they afterward entrusted the supreme command of the land and naval forces.

While Holland was mourning the death of the Prince of Orange, the Catholic priesthood in all the cities under Spanish rule were rejoicing over the assassination and extolling the assassin. The Jesuits exalted him as a martyr, the University of Louvain published his defence, the canons of Bois-le-Duc chanted a Te Deum. After a few years the King of Spain bestowed on Gerard's family a title and the confiscated property of the Prince of Orange in Burgundy.

The house where William was murdered is still standing: it is a dark-looking building with arched windows and a narrow door, and forms part of the cloister of an old cathedral consecrated to St. Agatha. It still bears the name of Prinsenhof, although it is now used for artillery barracks. I got permission to enter from the officer on guard. A corporal who understood a little French accompanied me. We crossed a courtyard full of soldiers, and arrived at the memorable place. I saw the staircase the Prince was mounting when he was attacked, the dark corner where Gerard hid himself, the door of the room where the unfortunate William dined for the last time, and the mark of the bullets on the wall in a little whitewashed space which bears a Dutch inscription reminding one that here died the father of his country. The corporal showed me where the assassin had fled. While I was looking round, with that pensive curiosity that one feels in places where great crimes have been committed, soldiers were ascending and descending; they stopped to look at me, and then went away singing and whistling; some near me were humming; others were laughing loudly in the courtyard. All this youthful gayety was in sharp and moving contrast to the sad gravity of those memories, and seemed like a festival of children in the room where died a grandparent whose memory we cherish.

Opposite the barracks is the oldest church in Delft. It contains the tomb of the famous Admiral Tromp, the veteran of the Dutch navy, who saw thirty-two naval battles, and in 1652, at the battle of the Downs, defeated the English fleet commanded by Blake. He re-entered his country with a broom tied to the masthead of the admiral's ship to indicate that he had swept the English off the seas. Here also is the tomb of Peter Heyn, who from a simple fisherman rose to be a great admiral, and took that memorable netful of Spanish ships that had under their hatches more than eleven million florins; also the tomb of Leeuwenhoek, the father of the science of the infinitely small--who, with the "divining-glass," as Parini says, "saw primitive man swimming in the genital wave." The church has a high steeple surmounted by four conical turrets. It is inclined like the Tower of Pisa, because the ground has sunk beneath it. Gerard was imprisoned in one of the cells of this tower on the night of the assassination.

At Rotterdam I had been given a letter to a citizen of Delft asking him to show me his house. The letter read: "He desires to penetrate into the mysteries of an old Dutch house; lift for a moment the curtain of the sanctuary." The house was not hard to find, and as soon as I saw it I said to myself, "That is the house for me!"

It was a red cottage, one story in height, with a long peaked gable, situated at the end of a street which stretched out into the country. It stood almost on the edge of a canal, leaning a little forward, as if it wished to see its reflection in the water. A pretty linden tree grew in front which spread over the window like a great fan, and a drawbridge lay before the door. Then there were the white curtains, the green doors, the flowers, the looking-glasses--in fact, it was a perfect little model of a Dutch house.

The road was deserted. Before I knocked at the door I waited a little while, looking at it and thinking. That house made me understand Holland better than all the books I had read. It was at the same time the expression and the reason of the domestic love, of the modest desires, and the independent nature of the Dutch people. In our country there is no such thing as the true house: there are only divisions in barracks, abstract habitations, which are not ours, but in which we live hidden, but not alone, hearing a thousand noises made by people who are strangers to us, who disturb our sorrows with the echo of their joys and interrupt our joys with the echo of their sorrows. The real home is in Holland--a house of one's own, quite separate from others, modest, circumspect, and, by reason of its retirement, unknown to mysteries and intrigues. When the inhabitants of the house are merry, everything is bright; when they are sad, all is serious. In these houses, with their canals and drawbridges, every modest citizen feels something of the solitary dignity of a feudal lord, and might imagine himself the commander of a fortress or the captain of a ship; and indeed, as he looks from his windows, as from those of an anchored vessel, he sees a boundless level plain, which inspires him with just such sentiments of freedom and solemnity as are awakened by the sea. The trees that surround his house like a green girdle allow only a delicate broken light to enter it; boats freighted with merchandise glide noiselessly past his door; he does not hear the trampling of horses or the cracking of whips, or songs or street-cries; all the activities of the life that surrounds him are silent and gentle: all breathes of peace and sweetness, and the steeple of the church hard by tells the hour with a flood of harmony as full of repose and constancy as are his affections and his work.

I knocked at the door, and the master of the house opened it. He read the letter which I gave him, regarded me critically, and bade me enter. It is almost always thus. At the first meeting the Dutch are apt to be suspicious. We open our arms to any one who brings us a letter of introduction as if he were our most intimate friend, and very often do nothing for him afterward. The Dutch, on the contrary, receive you coldly--so coldly, indeed, that sometimes you feel mortified--but afterward they do a thousand things for you with the best will in the world, and without the least appearance of doing you a kindness.

Within, the house was in perfect harmony with its outside appearance; it seemed to be the inside of a ship. A circular wooden staircase, shining like polished ebony, led to the upper rooms. There were mats and carpets on the stairs, in front of the doors, and on the floors. The rooms were as small as cells, the furniture was as clean as possible, the door-plates, the knobs, the nails, the brass and the other metal ornaments were as bright as if they had just left the hands of the burnisher. Everywhere there was a profusion of porcelain vases, of cups, lamps, mirrors, small pictures, bureaus, cupboards, knicknacks, and small objects of every shape and for every use. All were marvellously clean, and bespoke the thousand little wants that the love of a sedentary life creates--the careful foresight, the continual care, the taste for little things, the love of order, the economy of space; in short, it was the abode of a quiet, domestic woman.

The goddess of this temple, who could not or did not dare speak French, was hidden in some inmost recess which I did not succeed in discovering.

We went down stairs to see the kitchen; it was one gleam of brightness. When I returned home I described it, in my mother's presence, to the servant who prided herself on her cleanliness, and she was annihilated. The walls were as white as snow; the saucepans reflected everything like so many looking-glasses; the top of the chimney-piece was ornamented by a sort of muslin curtain like the curtains of a bed, bearing no trace of smoke; the wall below the chimney was covered with square majolica tiles which were as clean as though the fire had never been lighted; the andirons, shovel, and tongs, the chain of the spit, all seemed to be of burnished steel. A lady dressed for a ball could have gone round the room and into all the corners and touched everything without getting a speck of dirt on her spotless attire.

At this moment the maid was cleaning the room, and my host spoke of this as follows: "To have an idea of what cleanliness means with us," he said, "one ought to watch the work of these women for an hour. Here they scrub, wash, and brush a house as if it were a person. A house is not cleaned; it has its toilette made. The girls blow between the bricks, they rummage in the corners with their nails and with pins, and clean so minutely that they tire their eyes no less than their arms. Really it is a national passion. These girls, who are generally so phlegmatic, change their character on cleaning day and become frantic. That day we are no longer masters of our houses. They invade our rooms, turn us out, sprinkle us, turn everything topsy-turvy; for them it is a gala day; they are like bacchantes of cleanliness; the madness grows as they wash." I asked him to what he attributed this species of mania for which Holland is famous. He gave me the same reasons that many others had given; the atmosphere of their country, which greatly injures wood and metals, the damp, the small size of the houses and the number of things they contain, which naturally makes it difficult to keep them clean, the superabundance of water, which helps the work, a something that the eye seems to require, until cleanliness ends by appearing beautiful, and, lastly, the emulation that everywhere leads to excess. "But," he added, "this is not the cleanest part of Holland; the excess, the delirium of cleanliness, is to be seen in the northern provinces."