Are these things related merely to excite superfluous horror?  Are the sufferings of these obscure Christians beneath the dignity of history?  Is it not better to deal with murder and oppression in the abstract, without entering into trivial details?  The answer is, that these things are the history of the Netherlands at this epoch; that these hideous details furnish the causes of that immense movement, out of which a great republic was born and an ancient tyranny destroyed; and that Cardinal Granvelle was ridiculous when he asserted that the people would not open their mouths if the seigniors did not make such a noise.  Because the great lords “owed their very souls”—­because convulsions might help to pay their debts, and furnish forth their masquerades and banquets—­because the Prince of Orange was ambitious, and Egmont jealous of the Cardinal—­therefore superficial writers found it quite natural that the country should be disturbed, although that “vile and mischievous animal, the people,” might have no objection to a continuance of the system which had been at work so long.  On the contrary, it was exactly because the movement was a popular and a religious movement that it will always retain its place among the most important events of history.  Dignified documents, state papers, solemn treaties, are often of no more value than the lambskin on which they are engrossed.  Ten thousand nameless victims, in the cause of religious and civil freedom, may build up great states and alter the aspect of whole continents.

The nobles, no doubt, were conspicuous, and it was well for the cause of the right that, as in the early hours of English liberty, the crown and mitre were opposed by the baron’s sword and shield.  Had all the seigniors made common cause with Philip and Granvelle, instead of setting their breasts against the inquisition, the cause of truth and liberty would have been still more desperate.  Nevertheless they were directed and controlled, under Providence, by humbler, but more powerful agencies than their own.  The nobles were but the gilded hands on the outside of the dial—­the hour to strike was determined by the obscure but weighty movements within.

Nor is it, perhaps, always better to rely upon abstract phraseology, to produce a necessary impression.  Upon some minds, declamation concerning liberty of conscience and religious tyranny makes but a vague impression, while an effect may be produced upon them, for example by a dry, concrete, cynical entry in an account book, such as the following, taken at hazard from the register of municipal expenses at Tournay, during the years with which we are now occupied: 

   “To Mr. Jacques Barra, executioner, for having tortured, twice, Jean
   de Lannoy, ten sous.

   “To the same, for having executed, by fire, said Lannoy, sixty sous. 
   For having thrown his cinders into the river, eight sous.”