Les Quarante-cinq. English

by Alexandre Dumas

  CHAPTER LXI.

  WHAT MONSEIGNEUR FRANCOIS, DUC D'ANJOU, DUC DE BRABANT AND COMTE DEFLANDERS, WAS DOING IN FLANDERS.

  Our readers must now permit us to leave the king at the Louvre, Henri ofNavarre at Cahors, Chicot on the road, and Diana in the street, to go toFlanders to find M. le Duc d'Anjou, recently named Duc de Brabant, andto whose aid we have sent the great admiral of France--Anne, duc deJoyeuse.

  At eighty leagues from Paris, toward the north, the sound of Frenchvoices was heard, and the French banner floated over a French camp onthe banks of the Scheldt. It was night; the fires, disposed in animmense circle, bordered the stream, and were reflected in its deepwaters.

  From the top of the ramparts of the town the sentinels saw shining, bythe bivouac fires, the muskets of the French army. This army was that ofthe Duc d'Anjou. What he had come to do there we must tell our readers;and although it may not be very amusing, yet we hope they will pardon itin consideration of the warning; so many people are dull withoutannouncing it.

  Those of our readers who have read "Chicot," already know the Ducd'Anjou, that jealous, egotistical, ambitious prince, and who, born sonear to the throne, had never been able to wait with resignation untildeath offered him a free passage to it. Thus he had desired the throneof Navarre under Charles IX., then that of Charles IX. himself, thenthat of his brother Henri III. For a time he had turned his eyes towardEngland, then governed by a woman, and to possess this throne he wasready to have married this woman, although she was Elizabeth, and wastwenty years older than himself. In this plan destiny was beginning tosmile on him, and he saw himself in the favor of a great queen, untilthen inaccessible to all human affections. Besides this, a crown wasoffered to him in Flanders.

  He had seen his brother Henri embarrassed in his quarrel with theGuises, but had soon discovered that they had no other aim than that ofsubstituting themselves for the Valois. He had then separated himselffrom them, although not without danger; besides, Henri III. had at lastopened his eyes, and the duke exiled, or something like it, had retiredto Amboise.

  It was then that the Flemings opened their arms to him. Tired of Spanishrule, decimated by the Duc d'Alva, deceived by the false peace of Johnof Austria, who had profited by it to retake Namur and Charlemont, theFlemings had called in William of Nassau, prince of Orange, and had madehim governor-general of Brabant. A few words about this man, who held sogreat a place in history, but who will only be named here.

  William of Nassau was then about fifty. He was the son of William calledthe Old, and of Julienne de Stolberg, cousin of that Rene of Nassaukilled at the siege of Dizier. He had from his youth been brought up inprinciples of reform, and had a full consciousness of the greatness ofhis mission. This mission, which he believed he had received fromHeaven, and for which he died like a martyr, was to found the Republicof Holland, in which he was successful. When very young he had beencalled by Charles V. to his court. Charles was a good judge of men, andoften the old emperor, who supported the heaviest burden ever borne byan imperial hand, consulted the child on the most delicate mattersconnected with the politics of Holland. The young man was scarcelytwenty-four when Charles confided to him, in the absence of the famousPhilibert Emanuel of Savoy, the command of the army in Flanders. Williamshowed himself worthy of this high confidence: he held in check the Ducde Nevers and Coligny, two of the greatest captains of the time, andunder their eyes fortified Philipville and Charlemont. On the day whenCharles V. abdicated, it was on William of Nassau that he leaned todescend the steps of the throne, and he it was who was charged to carryto Ferdinand the imperial throne which Charles had resigned.

  Then came Philippe II., and in spite of his father's recommendations tohim to regard William as a brother, the latter soon found a greatdifference. This strengthened in his mind the great idea of freeingHolland and Flanders, which he might never have endeavored to carry intoeffect if the old emperor, his friend, had remained on the throne.

  Holland, by his advice, demanded the dismissal of the foreign troops,and then began the bloody struggle of the Spaniards to retain the preywhich was escaping from them, and then passed over this unhappy peoplethe vice-royalty of Marguerite of Austria and the bloody consulship ofthe Duc d'Alva, and then was organized that struggle, at once politicaland religious, which began with the protest of the Hotel Culembourg,which demanded the abolition of the Inquisition in Holland, and whenfour hundred gentlemen, walking in pairs, carried to the foot ofMarguerite's throne the general desire of the people, as summed up inthat protest. At the sight of these gentlemen, so simply clothed,Barlaimont, one of the councilors of the duchess, uttered the word"Gueux," which, taken up by the Flemish gentlemen, so long designatedthe patriot party. From this time William began to play the part whichmade him one of the greatest political actors of the world. Constantlybeaten by the overwhelming power of Philippe II., he constantly roseagain, always stronger after his defeats--always organizing a new armyto replace the scattered one, and always hailed as a liberator.

  In the midst of these alternate moral triumphs and physical defeats,William learned at Mons the news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Itwas a terrible wound for Holland, and the Calvinist portion of Flanderslost by it their natural allies, the Huguenots of France.

  William retreated from Mons to the Rhine, and waited for events. Some ofthe Gueux was driven by a contrary wind into the port of Brille: andseeing no escape, and pushed by despair, took the city which waspreparing to hang them.

  This done, they chased away the Spanish garrison, and sent for thePrince of Orange. He came; and as he wished to strike a decisive blow,he published an ordonnance forbidding the Catholic religion in Holland,as the Protestant faith was forbidden in France.

  At this manifesto war recommenced. The Duc d'Alva sent his own sonFrederic against the revolters, who took from them Zutphen, Nardem, andHaarlem; but this check, far from discouraging them, seemed to give themnew strength. All took up arms, from the Zuyderzee to the Scheldt. Spainbegan to tremble, recalled the Duc d'Alva, and sent as his successorLouis de Requesens, one of the conquerors at Lepanto.

  Then began for William a new series of misfortunes--Ludovic and Henri ofNassau, who were bringing him aid, were surprised by one of the officersof Don Louis near Nimegue, defeated and killed; the Spaniards penetratedinto Holland, besieged Leyden, and pillaged Antwerp.

  All seemed desperate, when Heaven came once more to the aid of theinfant Republic. Requesens died at Brussels.

  Then all the provinces, united by a common interest, drew up and signed,on the 8th November, 1576, that is to say four days after the sack ofAntwerp, the treaty known under the name of the Treaty of Ghent, bywhich they engaged to aid each other in delivering their country fromthe yoke of the Spaniards and other foreigners.

  Don John reappeared, and with him the woes of Holland; for in less thantwo months Namur and Charlemont were taken. The Flemings replied,however, to these two checks by naming the Prince of Orangegovernor-general of Brabant.

  Don John died in his turn, and Alexander Farnese succeeded him. He was aclever prince, charming in his manners, which were at once gentle andfirm; a skillful politician, and a good general. Flanders trembled athearing that soft Italian voice call her friend, instead of treating heras a rebel. William knew that Farnese would do more for Spain with hispromises than the Duc d'Alva with his punishments. On the 29th January,1579, he made the provinces sign the Treaty of Utrecht, which was thefundamental base of the rights of Holland. It was then that, fearing heshould never be able to accomplish alone the freedom for which he hadbeen fighting for fifteen years, he offered to the Duc d'Anjou thesovereignty of the country, on condition that he should respect theirprivileges and their liberty of conscience. This was a terrible blow toPhilippe II., and he replied to it by putting a price of 25,000 crownson the head of William. The States-General assembled at the Hague, thendeclared Philippe deposed from the sovereignty of Holland, and orderedthat henceforth the oath of fidelity should be taken to them.

&
nbsp; The Duc d'Anjou now entered Belgium, and was well received. Philippe'spromise, however, bore its fruits; for in the midst of a fete, a pistolshot was heard; William fell, and was believed dead; but he recovered.The shot had been fired by Jean Jaureguy.

  The Flemings then, on William's advice, elected Francois, duc ofBrabant, sovereign prince of Flanders. Elizabeth of England saw in thisa method of reuniting the Calvinists of Flanders and France to those ofEngland--perhaps she dreamed of a triple crown. William, however, tookcare to hold the Duc d'Anjou in check, and to counteract the executionof any design which would have given him too much power in Flanders.Philippe II. called the Duc de Guise to his aid, on the strength of atreaty which had been entered into by him with Don John of Austria.Henri of Guise consented, and it was then that Lorraine and Spain sentSalcede to the Duc d'Anjou to assassinate him, which would have suitedthe views of both; but Salcede, as we know, was arrested and executedwithout having carried his project into execution.

  Francois advanced but slowly, however, in Flanders, for the people weremore than half afraid of him; he grew impatient, and determined to laysiege to Antwerp, which had invited his aid against Farnese, but when hewished to enter had turned its guns against him. This was the positionof the Duc d'Anjou at the time when our story rejoins him, on the dayafter the arrival of Joyeuse and his fleet.