Persecution begat counter-persecution. The city of Ghent became the centre of a system of insurrection, by which all the laws of God and man were outraged under the pretence of establishing a larger liberty in civil and religious matters. It was at Ghent that the opening scenes, in Parma's administration took place. Of the high-born suitors for the Netherland bride, two were still watching each other with jealous eyes. Anjou was at Mons, which city he had secretly but unsuccessfully attempted to master for, his, own purposes. John Casimir was at Ghent, fomenting an insurrection which he had neither skill to guide, nor intelligence to comprehend. There was a talk of making him Count of Flanders,--and his paltry ambition was dazzled by the glittering prize. Anjou, who meant to be Count of Flanders himself, as well as Duke or Count of all the other Netherlands, was highly indignant at this report, which he chose to consider true. He wrote to the estates to express his indignation. He wrote to Ghent to offer his mediation between the burghers and the Malcontents. Casimir wanted money for his troops. He obtained a liberal supply, but he wanted more. Meantime, the mercenaries were expatiating on their own account throughout the southern provinces; eating up every green leaf, robbing and pillaging, where robbery and pillage had gone so often that hardly anything was left for rapine. Thus dealt the soldiers in the open country, while their master at Ghent was plunging into the complicated intrigues spread over that unfortunate city by the most mischievous demagogues that ever polluted a sacred cause. Well had Cardinal Granvelle, his enemy, William of Hesse, his friend and kinsman, understood the character of John Casimir. Robbery and pillage were his achievements, to make chaos more confounded was his destiny. Anjou--disgusted with the temporary favor accorded to a rival whom he affected to despise--disbanded his troops in dudgeon, and prepared to retire to France. Several thousand of these mercenaries took service immediately with the Malcontents under Montigny, thus swelling the ranks of the deadliest foes to that land over which Anjou had assumed the title of protector. The states' army, meanwhile, had been rapidly dissolving. There were hardly men enough left to make a demonstration in the field, or properly to garrison the more important towns. The unhappy provinces, torn by civil and religious dissensions, were overrun by hordes of unpaid soldiers of all nations, creeds, and tongues-Spaniards, Italians, Burgundians, Walloons, Germans, Scotch and English; some who came to attack and others to protect, but who all achieved nothing and agreed in nothing save to maltreat and to outrage the defenceless peasantry and denizens of the smaller towns. The contemporary chronicles are full of harrowing domestic tragedies, in which the actors are always the insolent foreign soldiery and their desperate victims.