The news of Anjou’s death had been brought to Delft by a special messenger from the French court.  On Sunday morning, the 8th of July, 1584, the Prince of Orange, having read the despatches before leaving his bed, caused the man who had brought them to be summoned, that he might give some particular details by word of mouth concerning the last illness of the Duke.  The courier was accordingly admitted to the Prince’s bed-chamber, and proved to be one Francis Guion, as he called himself.  This man had, early in the spring, claimed and received the protection of Orange, on the ground of being the son of a Protestant at Besancon, who had suffered death for—­his religion, and of his own ardent attachment to the Reformed faith.  A pious, psalm-singing, thoroughly Calvinistic youth he seemed to be having a bible or a hymn-book under his arm whenever he walked the street, and most exemplary in his attendance at sermon and lecture.  For, the rest, a singularly unobtrusive personage, twenty-seven years of age, low of stature, meagre, mean-visaged, muddy complexioned, and altogether a man of no account—­quite insignificant in the eyes of all who looked upon him.  If there were one opinion in which the few who had taken the trouble to think of the puny, somewhat shambling stranger from Burgundy at all coincided, it was that he was inoffensive but quite incapable of any important business.  He seemed well educated, claimed to be of respectable parentage and had considerable facility of speech, when any person could be found who thought it worth while to listen to him; but on the whole he attracted little attention.

Nevertheless, this insignificant frame locked up a desperate and daring character; this mild and inoffensive nature had gone pregnant seven years with a terrible crime, whose birth could not much longer be retarded.  Francis Guion, the Calvinist, son of a martyred Calvinist, was in reality Balthazar Gerard, a fanatical Catholic, whose father and mother were still living at Villefans in Burgundy.  Before reaching man’s estate, he had formed the design of murdering the Prince of Orange, “who, so long as he lived, seemed like to remain a rebel against the Catholic King, and to make every effort to disturb the repose of the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion.”

When but twenty years of age, he had struck his dagger with all his might into a door, exclaiming, as he did so, “Would that the blow had been in the heart of Orange!” For this he was rebuked by a bystander, who told him it was not for him to kill princes, and that it was not desirable to destroy so good a captain as the Prince, who, after all, might one day reconcile himself with the King.