intimidate the insolence of the sectaries?  Never were magistrates in greater perplexity.  They knew not what course was likely to prove the safest, and in their anxiety to do nothing wrong, the senators did nothing at all.  After a long and anxious consultation, the honest burgomaster and his associates all went home to their beds, hoping that the threatening flame of civil tumult would die out of itself, or perhaps that their dreams would supply them with that wisdom which seemed denied to their waking hours.

In the morning, as it was known that no precaution had been taken, the audacity of the Reformers was naturally increased.  Within the cathedral a great crowd was at an early hour collected, whose savage looks and ragged appearance denoted that the day and night were not likely to pass away so peacefully as the last.  The same taunts and imprecations were hurled at the image of the Virgin; the same howling of the beggars’ cry resounded through the lofty arches.  For a few hours, no act of violence was committed, but the crowd increased.  A few trifles, drifting, as usual, before the event, seemed to indicate the approaching convulsion.  A very paltry old woman excited the image-breaking of Antwerp.  She had for years been accustomed to sit before the door of the cathedral with wax-tapers and wafers, earning scanty subsistence from the profits of her meagre trade, and by the small coins which she sometimes received in charity.  Some of the rabble began to chaffer with this ancient hucksteress.  They scoffed at her consecrated wares; they bandied with her ribald jests, of which her public position had furnished her with a supply; they assured her that the hour had come when her idolatrous traffic was to be forever terminated, when she and her patroness, Mary, were to be given over to destruction together.  The old woman, enraged, answered threat with threat, and gibe with gibe.  Passing from words to deeds, she began to catch from the ground every offensive missile or weapon which she could find, and to lay about her in all directions.  Her tormentors defended themselves as they could.  Having destroyed her whole stock-in-trade, they provoked others to appear in her defence.  The passers-by thronged to the scene; the cathedral was soon filled to overflowing; a furious tumult was already in progress.

Many persons fled in alarm to the town-house, carrying information of this outbreak to the magistrates.  John Van Immerzeel, Margrava of Antwerp, was then holding communication with the senate, and awaiting the arrival of the ward-masters, whom it had at last been thought expedient to summon.  Upon intelligence of this riot, which the militia, if previously mustered, might have prevented, the senate determined to proceed to the cathedral in a body, with the hope of quelling the mob by the dignity of their presence.  The margrave, who was the high executive officer of the little commonwealth, marched down to the cathedral