At half-past eight all the clergy of Mons, the ladies of the Chapter of Sainte Waudru, following the shrine of the saint, who was the patroness of Mons, all the magistrates, the deputies of the town council, the chief councillor of the Provinces in his State robes, and the twenty-six deputies of the chief towns in Hainault, preceded by magnificent banners from all the parishes, embroidered in gold and silk, took their places in the theatre. At nine o’clock his Highness the Prince Charles de Ligne left his hotel in a coach drawn by six horses and preceded by a detachment of dragoons, by the members of the order of the nobility, each one in a coach drawn by two horses, and by a herald-at-arms on horseback, named O’Kelly, bearing his coat-of-arms, and the cap and wand of his office. The guards and officers of his house closed the procession. On reaching the theatre his Highness seated himself on an arm-chair under a canopy, above which was placed a portrait of his Majesty. When all the different orders were placed and seated, the trumpets sounded, Murray’s regiment fired a volley of musketry, the artillery on the ramparts answered by a salute, and the herald-at-arms, advancing to the front of the theatre, called _Silence_ three times. Then the Prince rose, and, laying his hand on the Gospels, first took the oath to the Chapter of Sainte Waudru, of which he was named Abbot. The Princesse de Croy, first lady of the Chapter, presented to him the crozier, and a salute of artillery and music and trumpets, etc., announced to the people that the first act of the ceremony had taken place. The Prince afterwards took the oath to the States, in the same manner; and finally, a third time to the town of Mons, after which he solemnly received the oaths of allegiance from the said Chapter, States, and Town. “During the ceremony,” says the councillor Paridaens, “some national guards, taken prisoners in that night’s encounter, had been brought to the square, and just as the procession was threading its way to Sainte Waudru, at the entrance of the road, it was met by the generals who were returning from fighting the French. At the head of these generals was the Duc Albert de Saxe, with his nephew the Archduke Charles,[109] who had been under fire for the first time in his life. At that very moment the news arrived that M. de Gouvion, Commander-in-Chief of the French army, had been killed. It was vaguely known that the French had been repulsed, after having made, however, a good stand for the first time. Indeed the cannon had been heard without interruption from two o’clock till six in the morning. On the 12th of June H.R.H. Madame arrived about ten o’clock in the morning. “On entering the rooms of the Government House she heartily and repeatedly embraced her nephew, the Archduke Charles, as one might a friend whom one sees for the first time after he has encountered a great danger. I saw this from my dining-room windows.”