“Sainte Aldegonde was not discouraged by this statement, but in the hope of convincing others, or with the wish of showing that he had tried his best, desired that I would hear him before the council of state.  I granted the request, and Sainte Aldegonde then made another long and very elegant oration, intended to divert me from my resolution.”

It must be confessed—­if the reports, which have come down to us of that long and elegant oration be correct—­that the enthusiasm of the burgomaster for Alexander was rapidly degenerating into idolatry.

“We are not here, O invincible Prince,” he said, “that we may excuse, by an anxious legation, the long defence which we have made of our homes.  Who could have feared any danger to the most powerful city in the Netherlands from so moderate a besieging force?  You would yourself have rather wished for, than approved of, a greater facility on our part, for the brave cannot love the timid.  We knew the number of your troops, we had discovered the famine in your camp, we were aware of the paucity of your ships, we had heard of the quarrels in your army, we were expecting daily to hear of a general mutiny among your soldiers.  Were we to believe that with ten or eleven thousand men you would be able to block up the city by land and water, to reduce the open country of Brabant, to cut off all aid as well from the neighbouring towns as from the powerful provinces of Holland and Zeeland, to oppose, without a navy, the whole strength of our fleets, directed against the dyke?  Truly, if you had been at the head of fifty thousand soldiers, and every soldier had possessed one hundred hands, it would have seemed impossible for you to meet so many emergencies in so many places, and under so many distractions.  What you have done we now believe possible to do, only because we see that it has been done.  You have subjugated the Scheldt, and forced it to bear its bridge, notwithstanding the strength of its current, the fury of the ocean-tides, the tremendous power of the icebergs, the perpetual conflicts with our fleets.  We destroyed your bridge, with great slaughter of your troops.  Rendered more courageous by that slaughter, you restored that mighty work.  We assaulted the great dyke, pierced it through and through, and opened a path for our ships.  You drove us off when victors, repaired the ruined bulwark, and again closed to us the avenue of relief.  What machine was there that we did not employ? what miracles of fire did we not invent? what fleets and floating cidadels did we not put in motion?  All that genius, audacity, and art, could teach us we have executed, calling to our assistance water, earth, heaven, and hell itself.  Yet with all these efforts, with all this enginry, we have not only failed to drive you from our walls, but we have seen you gaining victories over other cities at the same time.  You have done a thing, O Prince, than which there is nothing greater either in ancient or modern story.  It has often occurred, while a general was besieging one city that he lost another situate farther off.  But you, while besieging Antwerp, have reduced simultaneously Dendermonde, Ghent, Nymegen, Brussels, and Mechlin.”