was requested to remain in order to accompany his sovereign upon that journey to the Netherlands which would not be much longer delayed.  In his impatience anything seemed preferable to the state of suspense in which he was made to linger.  He eagerly offered, if he were accused or suspected of crime, to surrender himself to imprisonment if he only could be brought to trial.  Soon after Alva’s arrival in the Netherlands, the first part of this offer was accepted.  No sooner were the arrests of Egmont and Horn known in Madrid, than Montigny was deprived of his liberty, and closely confined in the alcazar of Segovia.  Here he remained imprisoned for eight or nine months in a high tower, with no attendant save a young page, Arthur de Munter, who had accompanied him from the Netherlands.  Eight men-at-arms were expressly employed to watch over him and to prevent his escape.

One day towards the middle of July, 1568, a band of pilgrims, some of them in Flemish attire, went through the streets of Segovia.  They were chanting, as was customary on such occasions, a low, monotonous song, in which Montigny, who happened to be listening, suddenly recognized the language of his fatherland.  His surprise was still greater when, upon paying closer attention, he distinguished the terrible meaning of the song.  The pretended pilgrims, having no other means of communication with the prisoner, were singing for his information the tragic fates of his brother, Count Horn, and of his friend, Count Egmont.  Mingled with the strain were warnings of his own approaching doom; if he were not able to effect his escape before it should be too late.  Thus by this friendly masquerade did Montigny learn the fate of his brother, which otherwise, in that land of terrible secrecy, might have been concealed from him for ever.

The hint as to his own preservation was not lost upon him; and he at once set about a plan of escape.  He succeeded in gaining over to his interests one of the eight soldiers by whom he was guarded, and he was thus enabled to communicate with many of his own adherents without the prison walls.  His major-domo had previously been permitted to furnish his master’s table with provisions dressed by his own cook.  A correspondence was now carried on by means of letters concealed within the loaves of bread sent daily to the prisoner.  In the same way files were provided for sawing through his window-bars.  A very delicate ladder of ropes, by which he was to effect his escape into the court below, was also transmitted.  The plan had been completely arranged.  A certain Pole employed in the enterprise was to be at Hernani, with horses in readiness to convey them to San Sebastian.  There a sloop had been engaged, and was waiting their arrival.  Montigny, accordingly, in a letter enclosed within a loaf of bread—­the last, as he hoped, which he should break in prison—­was instructed, after cutting off his beard and otherwise disguising his person, to execute his plan and join