of mail, of living in perpetual trepidation, of having gone on his knees to Egmont and Orange, of having sent Richardot, Bishop of Arras, to intercede for him in the same humiliating manner with Egmont.  All these stories were fables.  Bold as he was arrogant, he affected at this time to look down with a forgiving contempt on the animosity of the nobles.  He passed much of his time alone, writing his eternal dispatches to the King.  He had a country-house, called La Fontaine, surrounded by beautiful gardens, a little way outside the gates of Brussels, where he generally resided, and whence, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his friends, he often returned to town, after sunset, alone, or with but a few attendants.  He avowed that he feared no attempts at assassination, for, if the seigniors took his life, they would destroy the best friend they ever had.  This villa, where most of his plans were matured and his state papers drawn up, was called by the people, in derision of his supposed ancestry, “The Smithy.”  Here, as they believed, was the anvil upon which the chains of their slavery were forging; here, mostly deserted by those who had been his earlier, associates, he assumed a philosophical demeanor which exasperated, without deceiving his adversaries.  Over the great gate of his house he had placed the marble statue of a female.  It held an empty wine-cup in one hand, and an urn of flowing water in the other.  The single word “Durate” was engraved upon the pedestal.  By the motto, which was his habitual device, he was supposed, in this application, to signify that his power would outlast that of the nobles, and that perennial and pure as living water, it would flow tranquilly on, long after the wine of their life had been drunk to the lees.  The fiery extravagance of his adversaries, and the calm and limpid moderation of his own character, thus symbolized, were supposed to convey a moral lesson to the world.  The hieroglyphics, thus interpreted, were not relished by the nobles—­all avoided his society, and declined his invitations.  He consoled himself with the company of the lesser gentry, —­a class which he now began to patronize, and which he urgently recommended to the favor of the King,—­hinting that military and civil offices bestowed upon their inferiors would be a means of lowering the pride of the grandees.  He also affected to surround himself with even humbler individuals.  “It makes me laugh,” he wrote to Philip, “to see the great seigniors absenting themselves from my dinners; nevertheless, I can always get plenty of guests at my table, gentlemen and councillors.  I sometimes invite even citizens, in order to gain their good will.”

The Regent was well aware of the anger excited in the breasts of the leading nobles by the cool manner in which they had been thrust out of their share in the administration of affairs.  She defended herself with acrimony in her letters to the King, although a defence was hardly needed in that quarter for implicit obedience to the royal commands.  She confessed her unwillingness to consult with her enemies.