recrimination upon the Prince of Orange.  As that personage was agitating and turbulent, it was not possible, the Governor urged, that he should himself remain quiet.  It was out of his power to execute the treaty and the edict, in the face of a notorious omission on the part of his adversary to enforce the one or to publish the other.  It comported neither with his dignity nor his safety to lay down his weapons while the Prince and his adherents were arming.  He should have placed himself “in a very foolish position,” had he allowed himself unarmed to be dictated to by the armed.  In defence of himself on the third point, the seizure of Namur Castle, he recounted the various circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted.  He laid particular stress upon the dramatic manner in which the Vicomte De Gand had drawn his curtains at the dead of night; he narrated at great length the ominous warning which he had likewise received from the Duke of Aerschot in Brussels, and concluded with a circumstantial account of the ambush which he believed to have been laid for him by Count De Lalain.  The letter concluded with a hope for an arrangement of difficulties, not yet admitted by the Governor to be insurmountable, and with a request for a formal conference, accompanied by an exchange of hostages.

While this correspondence was proceeding between Namur and Brussels, an event was occurring in Antwerp which gave much satisfaction to Orange.  The Spanish Fury, and the recent unsuccessful attempt of Don John to master the famous citadel, had determined the authorities to take the counsel which the Prince had so often given in vain, and the fortress of Antwerp was at length razed to the ground, on the side towards the city.—­It would be more correct to say that it was not the authorities, but the city itself which rose at last and threw off the saddle by which it had so long been galled.  More than ten thousand persons were constantly at work, morning, noon, and night, until the demolition was accomplished.  Grave magistrates, great nobles, fair ladies, citizens and their wives, beggars and their children, all wrought together pell-mell.  All were anxious to have a hand in destroying the nest where so many murders had been hatched, whence so much desolation had flown.  The task was not a long one for workmen so much in earnest, and the fortress was soon laid low in the quarter where it could be injurious to the inhabitants.  As the work proceeded, the old statue of Alva was discovered in a forgotten crypt, where it had lain since it had been thrown down by the order of Requesens.  Amid the destruction of the fortress, the gigantic phantom of its founder seemed to start suddenly from the gloom, but the apparition added fresh fuel to the rage of the people.  The image of the execrated Governor was fastened upon with as much fierceness as if the bronze effigy could feel their blows, or comprehend their wrath.  It was brought forth from its dark