Letters of similar, import were also despatched by the Duke to the states of the Union, while to the Prince of Orange; his application was brief but brazen.  “You know well,—­my cousin,” said he “the just and frequent causes of offence which this people has given me.  The insults which I, this morning experienced cut me so deeply to the heart that they are the only reasons of the misfortune which has happened today.  Nevertheless, to those who desire my friendship I shall show equal friendship and affection.  Herein I shall follow the counsel you have uniformly given me, since I know it comes from one who has always loved me.  Therefore I beg that you will kindly bring it to pass, that I may obtain some decision, and that no injury may be inflicted upon my people.  Otherwise the land shall pay for it dearly.”

To these appeals, neither the Prince nor the authorities of Antwerp answered immediately in their own names.  A general consultation was, however, immediately held with the estates-general, and an answer forthwith despatched to the Duke by the hands of his envoys.  It was agreed to liberate the prisoners, to restore the furniture, and to send a special deputation for the purpose of making further arrangements with the Duke by word of mouth, and for this deputation his Highness was requested to furnish a safe conduct.

Anjou was overjoyed when he received this amicable communication.  Relieved for a time from his fears as to the result of his crime, he already assumed a higher ground.  He not only spoke to the states in a paternal tone, which was sufficiently ludicrous, but he had actually the coolness to assure them of his forgiveness.  “He felt hurt,” he said, “that they should deem a safe conduct necessary for the deputation which they proposed to send.  If they thought that he had reason on account of the past, to feel offended, he begged them to believe that he had forgotten it all, and that he had buried the past in its ashes, even as if it had never been.”  He furthermore begged them—­and this seemed the greatest insult of all—­“in future to trust to his word, and to believe that if any thing should be attempted to their disadvantage, he would be the very first to offer himself for their protection.”

It will be observed that in his first letters the Duke had not affected to deny his agency in the outrage—­an agency so flagrant that all subterfuge seemed superfluous.  He in fact avowed that the attempt had been made by his command, but sought to palliate the crime on the ground that it had been the result of the ill-treatment which he had experienced from the states.  “The affronts which I have received,” said he, both to the magistrates of Antwerp and to Orange, “have engendered the present calamity.”  So also, in a letter written at the same time to his brother, Henry the Third, he observed that “the indignities which were put upon him, and the manifest intention of the states to make a Matthias of him, had been the cause of the catastrophe.”