“Upon its left side, as one approached the stairway, was an obscure arch, sunk deep in the wall, and completely in the shadow of the door.  Behind this arch a portal opened to the narrow lane at the side of the house.  The stairs themselves were completely lighted by a large window, half-way up the flight.  The Prince came from the dining-room, and began leisurely to ascend.  He had only reached the second stair, when a man emerged from the sunken arch, and, standing within a foot or two of him, discharged a pistol full at his heart.”

When Jaureguy had fired at the Prince two years earlier, the ball passing through his jaw, the Prince, at he faltered under the shock, cried, “Do not kill him—­I forgive him my death!” But he had no time to express any such plea for his assailant after Gerard’s cruel shots.  “Three balls,” says Motley, “entered his body, one of which, passing quite through him, struck with violence against the wall beyond.  The Prince exclaimed in French, as he felt the wound, ’O my God, have mercy upon my soul!  O my God, have mercy upon this poor people!’

“These were the last words he ever spoke, save that when his sister, Catherine of Schwartzburgh, immediately afterwards asked him if he commended his soul to Jesus Christ, he faintly answered, ’Yes’.”

Never has the pistol done worse work.  The Prince was only fifty-one; he was full of vigour; his character had never been stronger, his wisdom never more mature.  Had he lived a few years longer the country would have been saved years of war and misery.

One may stand to-day exactly where the Prince stood when he was shot.  The mark of a bullet in the wall is still shown.  The dining-room, from which he had come, now contains a collection of relics of his great career.

Let us return to the New Church, past the statue of Grotius in the great square, in order to look again at that philosopher’s memorial.  Grotius, who was born at Delft, was extraordinarily precocious.  He went to Leyden University and studied under Scaliger when he was eleven; at sixteen he was practising as a lawyer at The Hague.  This is D. Goslings’ translation of the inscription on his tomb:—­

Sacred to Hugo Grotius

The Wonder of Europe, the sole astonishment of the learned world, the splendid work of nature surpassing itself, the summit of genius, the image of virtue, the ornament raised above mankind, to whom the defended honour of true religion gave cedars from the top of Lebanon, whom Mars adorned with laurels and Pallas with olive branches, when he had published the right of war and peace:  whom the Thames and the Seine regarded as the wonder of the Dutch, and whom the court of Sweden took in its service:  Here lies Grotius.  Shun this tomb, ye who do not burn with love of the Muses and your country.