from the Prior—­whose golden opinions had irresistible resonance—­soon wrought a change in the Malcontent chieftain’s mind.  Other leading seigniors were secretly dealt with in the same manner.  Lalain, Heze, Havre, Capres, Egmont, and even the Viscount of Ghent, all seriously inclined their ears to the charmer, and looked longingly and lovingly as the wily Prior rolled in his tangles before them—­“to mischief swift.”  Few had yet declared themselves; but of the grandees who commanded large bodies of troops, and whose influence with their order was paramount, none were safe for the patriot cause throughout the Walloon country.

The nobles and ecclesiastics were ready to join hands in support of church and king, but in the city of Arras, the capital of the whole country, there was a strong Orange and liberal party.  Gosson, a man of great wealth, one of the most distinguished advocates in the Netherlands, and possessing the gift of popular eloquence to a remarkable degree, was the leader of this burgess faction.  In the earlier days of Parma’s administration, just as a thorough union of the Walloon provinces in favor of the royal government had nearly been formed, these Orangists of Arras risked a daring stroke.  Inflamed by the harangues of Gosson, and supported by five hundred foot soldiers and fifty troopers under one Captain Ambrose, they rose against the city magistracy, whose sentiments were unequivocally for Parma, and thrust them all into prison.  They then constituted a new board of fifteen, some Catholics and some Protestants, but all patriots, of whom Gosson was chief.  The stroke took the town by surprise; and was for a moment successful.  Meantime, they depended upon assistance from Brussels.  The royal and ecclesiastical party was, however, not so easily defeated, and an old soldier, named Bourgeois, loudly denounced Captain Ambrose, the general of the revolutionary movement, as a vile coward, and affirmed that with thirty good men-at-arms he would undertake to pound the whole rebel army to powder—­” a pack of scarecrows,” he said, “who were not worth as many owls for military purposes.”

Three days after the imprisonment of the magistracy, a strong Catholic rally was made in their behalf in the Fishmarket, the ubiquitous Prior of Saint Vaast flitting about among the Malcontents, blithe and busy as usual when storms were brewing.  Matthew Doucet, of the revolutionary faction—­a man both martial and pacific in his pursuits, being eminent both as a gingerbread baker and a swordplayer—­swore he would have the little monk’s life if he had to take him from the very horns of the altar; but the Prior had braved sharper threats than these.  Moreover, the grand altar would have been the last place to look fox him on that occasion.  While Gosson was making a tremendous speech in favor of conscience and fatherland at the Hotel de Ville, practical John Sarrasin, purse in hand, had challenged the rebel general, Ambrose to private combat.  In half an