As early as the middle of October, while still in Antwerp, Alva had received several secret agents of the French monarch, then closely beleaguered in his capital.  Cardinal Lorraine offered to place several strong places of France in the hands of the Spaniard, and Alva had written to Philip that he was disposed to accept the offer, and to render the service.  The places thus held would be a guarantee for his expenses, he said, while in case King Charles and his brother should die, “their possession would enable Philip to assert his own claim to the French crown in right of his wife, the Salic law being merely a pleasantry.”

The Queen Dowager, adopting now a very different tone from that which characterized her conversation at the Bayonne interview, wrote to Alva, that, if for want of 2000 Spanish musketeers, which she requested him to furnish, she should be obliged to succumb, she chose to disculpate herself in advance before God and Christian princes for the peace which she should be obliged to make.  The Duke wrote to her in reply, that it was much better to have a kingdom ruined in preserving it for God and the king by war, than to have it kept entire without war, to the profit of the devil and of his followers.  He was also reported on another occasion to have reminded her of the Spanish proverb—­that the head of one salmon is worth those of a hundred frogs.  The hint, if it were really given, was certainly destined to be acted upon.

The Duke not only furnished Catherine with advice, but with the musketeers which she had solicited.  Two thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse, under the Count of Aremberg, attended by a choice band of the Catholic nobility of the Netherlands, had joined the royal camp at Paris before the end of the year, to take their part in the brief hostilities by which the second treacherous peace was to be preceded.

Meantime, Alva was not unmindful of the business which had served as a pretext in the arrest of the two Counts.  The fortifications of the principal cities were pushed on with great rapidity.  The memorable citadel of Antwerp in particular had already been commenced in October under the superintendence of the celebrated engineers, Pacheco and Gabriel de Cerbelloni.  In a few months it was completed, at a cost of one million four hundred thousand florins, of which sum the citizens, in spite of their remonstrances, were compelled to contribute more than one quarter.  The sum of four hundred thousand florins was forced from the burghers by a tax upon all hereditary property within the municipality.