the subject of mockery in Parma’s camp and cabinet, where treachery to one’s country and party was not, it seemed, regarded as one of the loftier virtues, however convenient it might be at the moment to the royal cause.  The Prior intimated especially that Ottavio Gonzaga had indulged in many sarcastic remarks at La Motte’s expense.  The brave but venal warrior, highly incensed at thus learning the manner in which his conduct was estimated by men of such high rank in the royal service, was near breaking off the bargain.  He was eventually secured, however, by still larger offers—­Don John allowing him three hundred florins a month, presenting him with the two best horses in his stable, and sending him an open form, which he was to fill out in the most stringent language which he could devise, binding the government to the payment of an ample and entirely satisfactory “merced.”  Thus La Motte’s bargain was completed a crime which, if it had only entailed the loss of the troops under his command, and the possession of Gravelines, would have been of no great historic importance.  It was, however, the first blow of a vast and carefully sharpened treason, by which the country was soon to be cut in twain for ever—­the first in a series of bargains by which the noblest names of the Netherlands were to be contaminated with bribery and fraud.

While the negotiations with La Notte were in progress, the government of the states-general at Brussels had sent Saint Aldegonde to Arras.  The states of Artois, then assembled in that city, had made much difficulty in acceding to an assessment of seven thousand florins laid upon them by the central authority.  The occasion was skillfully made use of by the agents of the royal party to weaken the allegiance of the province, and of its sister Walloon provinces, to the patriot cause.  Saint Aldegonde made his speech before the assembly, taking the ground boldly, that the war was made for liberty of conscience and of fatherland, and that all were bound, whether Catholic or Protestant, to contribute to the sacred fund.  The vote passed, but it was provided that a moiety of the assessment should be paid by the ecclesiastical branch, and the stipulation excited a tremendous uproar.  The clerical bench regarded the tax as both a robbery and an affront.  “We came nearly to knife-playing,” said the most distinguished priest in the assembly, “and if we had done so, the ecclesiastics would not have been the first to cry enough.”  They all withdrew in a rage, and held a private consultation upon “these exorbitant and more than Turkish demands.”  John Sarrasin, Prior of Saint Yaast, the keenest, boldest, and most indefatigable of the royal partisans of that epoch, made them an artful harangue.  This man—­a better politician than the other prior—­was playing for a mitre too, and could use his cards better.  He was soon to become the most invaluable agent in the great treason preparing.  No one could, be more delicate, noiseless, or unscrupulous, and he