It was, however, in vain that the Prince endeavoured to induce his army to try the fortunes of the civil war in France.  They had enlisted for the Netherlands, the campaign was over, and they insisted upon being led back to Germany.  Schomberg, secretly instructed by the King of France, was active in fomenting the discontent, and the Prince was forced to yield.  He led his army through Champagne and Lorraine to Strasburg, where they were disbanded.  All the money which the Prince had been able to collect was paid them.  He pawned all his camp equipage, his plate, his furniture.

What he could not pay in money he made up in promises, sacredly to be fulfilled, when he should be restored to his possessions.  He even solemnly engaged, should he return from France alive, and be still unable to pay their arrears of wages, to surrender his person to them as a hostage for his debt.

Thus triumphantly for Alva, thus miserably for Orange, ended the campaign.  Thus hopelessly vanished the army to which so many proud hopes had attached themselves.  Eight thousand teen had been slain in paltry encounters, thirty thousand were dispersed, not easily to be again collected.  All the funds which the Prince could command had been wasted without producing a result.  For the present, nothing seemed to afford a ground of hope for the Netherlands, but the war of freedom had been renewed in France.  A band of twelve hundred mounted men-at-arms were willing to follow the fortunes of the Prince.  The three brothers accordingly; William, Louis, and Henry—­a lad of eighteen, who had abandoned his studies at the university to obey the chivalrous instincts of his race—­set forth early in the following spring to join the banner of Conde.

Cardinal Granvelle, who had never taken his eyes or thoughts from the provinces during his residence at Rome, now expressed himself with exultation.  He had predicted, with cold malice, the immediate results of the campaign, and was sanguine enough to believe the contest over, and the Prince for ever crushed.  In his letters to Philip he had taken due notice of the compliments paid to him by Orange in his Justification, in his Declaration, and in his letter to the Emperor.  He had declined to make any answer to the charges, in order to enrage the Prince the more.  He had expressed the opinion, however, that this publication of writings was not the business of brave soldiers, but of cowards.  He made the same reflection upon the alleged intrigues by Orange to procure an embassy on his own behalf from the Emperor to Philip—­a mission which was sure to end in smoke, while it would cost the Prince all credit, not only in Germany but the Netherlands.  He felt sure, he said, of the results of the impending campaign.  The Duke of Alva was a man upon whose administrative prudence and military skill his sovereign could implicitly rely, nor was there a person in the ranks of the rebels capable of, conducting an enterprise of such moment.  Least of all had the Prince of Orange sufficient brains for carrying on such weighty affairs, according to the opinion which he had formed of him during their long intercourse in former days.