Meantime the city maintained, a stout heart still.  The whole population were arranged under different banners.  The rich and poor alike took arms to defend the walls which sheltered them.  The town paupers were enrolled in three companies, which bore the significant title of the “Tons-nulls” or the “Stark-nakeds,” and many was the fierce conflict delivered outside the gates by men, who, in the words of a Catholic then in the city, might rather be taken for “experienced veterans than for burghers and artisans.”  At the same time, to the honor of Valenciennes, it must be stated, upon the same incontestable authority, that not a Catholic in the city was injured or insulted.  The priests who had remained there were not allowed to say mass, but they never met with an opprobrious word or look from the people.

The inhabitants of the city called upon the confederates for assistance.  They also issued an address to the Knights of the Fleece; a paper which narrated the story of their wrongs in pathetic and startling language.  They appealed to those puissant and illustrious chevaliers to prevent the perpetration of the great wrong which was now impending over so many innocent heads.  “Wait not,” they said, “till the thunderbolt has fallen, till the deluge has overwhelmed us, till the fires already blazing have laid the land in coals and ashes, till no other course be possible, but to abandon the country in its desolation to foreign barbarity.  Let the cause of the oppressed come to your ears.  So shall your conscience become a shield of iron; so shall the happiness of a whole country witness before the angels, of your truth to his Majesty, in the cause of his true grandeur and glory.”

These stirring appeals to an order of which Philip was chief, Viglius chancellor, Egmont, Mansfeld, Aerschot, Berlaymont, and others, chevaliers, were not likely to produce much effect.  The city could rely upon no assistance in those high quarters.

Meantime, however, the bold Brederode was attempting a very extensive diversion, which, if successful, would have saved Valenciennes and the whole country beside.  That eccentric personage, during the autumn and winter had been creating disturbances in various parts of the country.  Wherever he happened to be established, there came from the windows of his apartments a sound of revelry and uproar.  Suspicious characters in various costumes thronged his door and dogged his footsteps.  At the same time the authorities felt themselves obliged to treat him with respect.  At Horn he had entertained many of the leading citizens at a great banquet.—­The-health-of-the-beggars had been drunk in mighty potations, and their shibboleth had resounded through the house.  In the midst of the festivities, Brederode had suspended a beggar’s-medal around the neck of the burgomaster, who had consented to be his guest upon that occasion, but who had no intention of enrolling himself in the fraternities of actual or political mendicants.  The excellent magistrate, however, was near becoming a member of both.  The emblem by which he had been conspicuously adorned proved very embarrassing to him upon his recovery from the effects of his orgies with the “great beggar,” and he was subsequently punished for his imprudence by the confiscation of half his property.