“You don’t mean, then,” repeated Schetz, “to submit to the estates touching the exercise of religion?”

“No, we do not!” replied the Prince, driven into a corner at last, and striking out in his turn.  “We certainly do not.  To tell you the truth, we see that you intend our extirpation, and we don’t mean to be extirpated.”

“Ho!” said the Duke of Aerschot, “there is nobody who wishes that.”

“Indeed, but you do,” said the Prince.  “We have submitted ourselves to you in good faith, and you now would compel us and all the world to maintain exclusively the Catholic religion.  This cannot be done except by extirpating us.”

A long, learned, vehement discussion upon abstract points, between Saint Aldegonde, Leoninus, and Doctor Gaill, then ensued, during which the Prince, who had satisfied himself as to the result of the conference, retired from the apartment.  He afterwards had a private convention with Schetz and Leoninus, in which he reproached them with their inclination to reduce their fatherland to slavery.  He also took occasion to remark to Hiergea, that it was a duty to content the people; that whatever might be accomplished for them was durable, whereas the will of kings was perishing.  He told the Duke of Aerschot that if Utrecht were not restored, he would take it by force.  He warned the Duke that to trust the King was to risk his head.  He, at least, would never repose confidence in him, having been deceived too often.  The King cherished the maxim, ‘hereticis non est servanda fides;’ as for himself he was ‘calbo y calbanista,’ and meant to die so.

The formal interchange of documents soon afterwards took place.  The conversation thus held between the different parties shows, however, the exact position of, affairs.  There was no change in the intentions of either; Reformers or Royalists.  Philip and his representatives still contended for two points, and claimed the praise of moderation that their demands were so few in number.  They were willing to concede everything, save the unlimited authority of the King and the exclusive maintenance of the Catholic religion.  The Prince of Orange, on his side, claimed two points also—­the ancient constitutions of the country and religious freedom.  It was obvious enough that the contest was, the same in reality, as it had ever been.  No approximation had been made towards reconciling absolutism with national liberty, persecution with toleration.  The Pacification of Ghent had been a step in advance.  That Treaty opened the door to civil and religious liberty, but it was an agreement among the provinces, not a compact between the people and the monarch.  By the casuists of Brussels and the licentiates of Louvain, it had, to be sure, been dogmatically pronounced orthodox, and had been confirmed by royal edict.  To believe, however, that his Catholic Majesty had faith in the dogmas propounded, was as absurd as to believe in the dogmas themselves.  If the Ghent Pacification really had made no breach in royal and Roman infallibility, then the efforts of Orange and the exultation of the Reformers had indeed been idle.