At Guise, on the frontier, the duke parted with Mayenne, leaving with him an auxiliary force of four thousand foot and five hundred horse, which he could ill spare.  He then returned to Brussels, which city he reached on the 4th December, filling every hotel and hospital with his sick soldiers, and having left one-third of his numbers behind him.  He had manifested his own military skill in the adroit and successful manner in which he had accomplished the relief of Paris, while the barrenness of the result from the whole expedition vindicated the political sagacity with which he had remonstrated against his sovereign’s infatuation.

Paris, with the renewed pressure on its two great arteries at Lagny and Corbeil, soon fell into as great danger as before; the obedient Netherlands during the absence of Farnese had been sinking rapidly to ruin, while; on the other hand, great progress and still greater preparations in aggressive warfare had been made by the youthful general and stadtholder of the Republic.

     Etext editor’s bookmarks: 

     Alexander’s exuberant discretion
     Divine right of kings
     Ever met disaster with so cheerful a smile
     Future world as laid down by rival priesthoods
     Invaluable gift which no human being can acquire, authority
     King was often to be something much less or much worse
     Magnificent hopefulness
     Myself seeing of it methinketh that I dream
     Nothing cheap, said a citizen bitterly, but sermons
     Obscure were thought capable of dying natural deaths
     Philip ii. gave the world work enough
     Righteous to kill their own children
     Road to Paris lay through the gates of Rome
     Shift the mantle of religion from one shoulder to the other
     Thirty-three per cent. interest was paid (per month)
     Under the name of religion (so many crimes)

HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year’s Truce—­1609

By John Lothrop Motley

History United Netherlands, Volume 63, 1590-1592

CHAPTER XXIV.

Prince Maurice—­State of the Republican army—­Martial science of the period—­Reformation of the military system by Prince Maurice—­His military genius—­Campaign in the Netherlands—­The fort and town of Zutphen taken by the States’ forces—­Attack upon Deventer—­Its capitulation—­Advance on Groningen, Delfzyl, Opslag, Yementil, Steenwyk, and other places—­Farnese besieges Fort Knodsenburg—­ Prince Maurice hastens to its relief—­A skirmish ensues resulting in the discomfiture of the Spanish and Italian troops—­Surrender of Hulat and Nymegen—­Close of military, operations of the year.

While the events revealed in the last chapter had been occupying the energies of Farnese and the resources