Their brief orisons concluded, they swept forward to the city.  Three thousand Spaniards, under their Eletto, were to enter by the street of Saint Michael; the Germans, and the remainder of the Spanish foot, commanded by Romero, through that of Saint George.  Champagny saw them coming, and spoke a last word of encouragement to the Walloons.  The next moment the compact mass struck the barrier, as the thunderbolt descends from the cloud.  There was scarcely a struggle.  The Walloons, not waiting to look their enemy in the face, abandoned the posts which whey had themselves claimed.  The Spaniards crashed through the bulwark, as though it had been a wall of glass.  The Eletto was first to mount the rampart; the next instant he was shot dead, while his followers, undismayed, sprang over his body, and poured into the streets.  The fatal gap, due to timidity and carelessness, let in the destructive tide.  Champagny, seeing that the enemies had all crossed the barrier; leaped over a garden wall, passed through a house into a narrow lane, and thence to the nearest station of the German troops.  Hastily collecting a small force, he led them in person to the rescue.  The Germans fought well, died well, but they could not reanimate the courage of the Walloons, and all were now in full retreat, pursued by the ferocious Spaniards.  In vain Champagny stormed among them; in vain he strove to rally their broken ranks.  With his own hand he seized a banner from a retreating ensign, and called upon the nearest soldiers to make’s stand against the foe.  It was to bid the flying clouds pause before the tempest.  Torn, broken, aimless, the scattered troops whirled through the streets before the pursuing wrath.  Champagny, not yet despairing, galloped hither and thither, calling upon the burghers everywhere to rise in defence of their homes, nor did he call in vain.  They came forth from every place of rendezvous, from every alley, from every house.  They fought as men fight to defend their hearths and altars, but what could individual devotion avail, against the compact, disciplined, resistless mass of their foes?  The order of defence was broken, there was no system, no concert, no rallying point, no authority.  So soon as it was known that the Spaniards had crossed the rampart, that its six thousand defenders were in full retreat, it was inevitable that a panic should seize the city.

Their entrance once effected, the Spanish force had separated; according to previous arrangement, into two divisions, one half charging up the long street of Saint Michael, the other forcing its way through the Street of Saint Joris.  “Santiago, Santiago!  Espana, Espana! a sangre, a carne, a fuego, a Sacco!” Saint James, Spain, blood, flesh, fire, sack!!—­such were the hideous cries which rang through every quarter of the city, as the savage horde advanced.  Van Ende, with his German troops, had been stationed by the Marquis of Havre to defend the Saint Joris gate, but no sooner, did the Spaniards under Vargas present