Inside the gate a stupendous allegory was awaiting the approach of the new sovereign.  A huge gilded car, crowded with those emblematical and highly bedizened personages so dear to the Netherlanders, obstructed the advance of the procession.  All the virtues seemed to have come out for an airing in one chariot, and were now waiting to offer their homage to Francis Hercules Valois.  Religion in “red satin,” holding the gospel in her hand, was supported by Justice, “in orange velvet,” armed with blade and beam.  Prudence and Fortitude embraced each other near a column enwreathed by serpents “with their tails in their ears to typify deafness to flattery,” while Patriotism as a pelican, and Patience as a brooding hen, looked benignantly upon the scene.  This greeting duly acknowledged, the procession advanced into the city.  The streets were lined with troops and with citizens; the balconies were filled with fair women; “the very gables,” says an enthusiastic contemporary, “seemed to laugh with ladies’ eyes.”  The market-place was filled with waxen torches and with blazing tar barrels, while in its centre stood the giant Antigonus—­ founder of the city thirteen hundred years before the Christian era—­the fabulous personage who was accustomed to throw the right hands of all smuggling merchants into the Scheld.  This colossal individual, attired in a “surcoat of sky-blue,” and holding a banner emblazoned with the arms of Spain, turned its head as the Duke entered the square, saluted the new sovereign, and then dropping the Spanish scutcheon upon the ground, raised aloft another bearing the arms of Anjou.

And thus, amid exuberant outpouring of confidence, another lord and master had made his triumphal entrance into the Netherlands.  Alas how often had this sanguine people greeted with similar acclamations the advent of their betrayers and their tyrants!  How soon were they to discover that the man whom they were thus receiving with the warmest enthusiasm was the most treacherous tyrant of all.

It was nightfall before the procession at last reached the palace of Saint Michael, which had been fitted up for the temporary reception of the Duke.  The next day was devoted to speech-making; various deputations waiting upon the new Duke of Brabant with congratulatory addresses.  The Grand Pensionary delivered a pompous oration upon a platform hung with sky-blue silk, and carpeted with cloth of gold.  A committee of the German and French Reformed Churches made a long harangue, in which they expressed the hope that the Lord would make the Duke “as valiant as David, as wise as Solomon, and as pious as Hezekiah.”  A Roman Catholic deputation informed his Highness that for eight months the members of the Ancient Church had been forbidden all religious exercises, saving baptism, marriage, visitation of the sick, and burials.  A promise was therefore made that this prohibition, which had been the result of the disturbances recorded