the council finally met to deliberate on these important questions; and during this long interval at such a crisis the confederates gained constant accessions to their numbers, and completely consolidated their plans.  The opinions in the council were greatly divided as to the mode of treatment toward those whom one party considered as patriots acting in their constitutional rights, and the other as rebels in open revolt against the king.  The Prince of Orange and De Berlaimont were the principal leaders and chief speakers on either side.  But the reasonings of the former, backed by the urgency of events, carried the majority of the suffrages; and a promised redress of grievances was agreed on beforehand as the anticipated answer to the coming demands.

Even while the council of state held its sittings, the report was spread through Brussels that the confederates were approaching.  And at length they did enter the city, to the amount of some hundreds of the representatives of the first families in the country.  On the following day, the 5th of April, 1566, they walked in solemn procession to the palace.  Their demeanor was highly imposing, from their mingled air of forbearance and determination.  All Brussels thronged out to gaze and sympathize with this extraordinary spectacle of men whose resolute step showed they were no common suppliants, but whose modest bearing had none of the seditious air of faction.  The stadtholderess received the distinguished petitioners with courtesy, listened to their detail of grievances, and returned a moderate, conciliatory, but evasive answer.

The confederation, which owed its birth to, and was cradled in social enjoyments, was consolidated in the midst of a feast.  The day following this first deputation to the stadtholderess, De Brederode gave a grand repast to his associates in the Hotel de Culembourg.  Three hundred guests were present.  Inflamed by joy and hope, their spirits rose high under the influence of wine, and temperance gave way to temerity.  In the midst of their carousing, some of the members remarked that when the stadtholderess received the written petition, Count Berlaimont observed to her that “she had nothing to fear from such a band of beggars” (tasde_GUEUX_).  The fact was that many of the confederates were, from individual extravagance and mismanagement, reduced to such a state of poverty as to justify in some sort the sarcasm.  The chiefs of the company being at that very moment debating on the name which they should choose for this patriotic league, the title of Gueux was instantly proposed, and adopted with acclamation.  The reproach it was originally intended to convey became neutralized, as its general application to men of all ranks and fortunes concealed its effect as a stigma on many to whom it might be seriously applied.  Neither were examples wanting of the most absurd and apparently dishonoring nicknames being elsewhere adopted by powerful political parties.